'Green' food from the black soil of Jiamusi

There are more than 1,000 agricultural cooperatives that cover nearly 60 percent of the farmers in the city. Thanks to an initiative to link farmers and agricultural companies with the market, locally produced rice goes directly to local Wal-Mart superstores.

In the Xinglong Cooperative, 580 farming households from 12 villages manage 800 hectares of land where mechanized operations have improved efficiency.

More than 1,000 farmers are running their own businesses, some 150 of them large. They now have combined annual processing capacity of 2.6 million tons of rice, 800,000 tons of corn and 900,000 tons of soybeans.

In the Grand Market of Farm Produce in Shenyang, in neighboring Liaoning province, the largest of its kind nationwide, a specialized area for green food from Jiamusi covers 2,000 square meters. During the week-long Spring Festival holidays this year, nearly 1,000 tons of rice was sold.

Promoted by local industry associations, rice alone can bring about 5 billion yuan in extra revenue to Jiamusi farmers a year.

In addition to rice, green and organic fruits and meats, are increasingly popular, some of the products now on sale in Russia.