Farms back in business to maintain food supply

All 41 agricultural cooperatives and 48 family farms with 1,157 farmers in Huating Town have resumed normal production.

Currently they produce more than 10 varieties of vegetables with an average weight of 60 tons a day, more than double the output at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Authorities in Huating divided its 13 villages into two groups, and six COVID-19 prevention teams were sent to the cooperatives and farms to check their prevention measures.

Fourteen cooperatives have added 540,000-square-meter farmland to plant greens to ensure supply for local residents. Some cooperatives have gone online to sell their products, a two-fold increase compared with the same period last year.

To ensure food safety, Huating Town Agriculture Service Center collected more than 50 bird samples and 1,320 agricultural product samples. And Jiading District Agricultural Technology Center promoted new traps for insects across the district, reducing pesticide use by nearly a third.

The center also checked equipment at 20 agricultural machinery cooperatives to ensure the smooth sowing of rice. Jiading District Agricultural Commission has also adopted unmanned rice planters to plant the rice.