Work on a cooperative project involving the Datong Coal Mine Group and Tianzhen County, for a Modern Agricultural Park worth 1.5 billion yuan ($246.6 million) got off to a good start on Oct 26.

This project follows provincial Party and provincial government ideas for a site for mid-size-to-large State-owned and private enterprises to help industrial development in poor counties. It also follows the ideas of the governor of Shanxi province, Li Xiaopeng, on industrializing agriculture in Tianzhen with the Datong Coal Mine Group’s help. The idea is to speed up change at Datong's coal mines and apply the "Hundreds of gardens backing agriculture in Tianzhen" project for mutual benefit and common development.

The plan calls for a modern vegetable business park of 6.7-million square meters, to be built in three phases within three years, for new varieties and new technologies, seedlings, processing, logistics, and pick-it-yourself agro-tourism.

The fist-stage involves building a production area around the Guoying Nursery in the village of Nanhebao, on 2,874 mu (1916,000). The production park consists of two multi-span greenhouses and 739 various kinds of greenhouse of land with a technology demonstration district, vegetable seedling area, vegetable greenhouses, processing and delivery center, offices, technology information center, and living area.

The second and third phases involve vegetarian restaurants, do-it-yourself picking areas for leisure tours and some other featured units.

This park is expected to help the development of neighboring villages and towns and to benefit agriculture, farmers and enterprises alike. Tianzhen can also use it as a production base for "green" vegetables for the Beijing-Tianjin area by using advanced technologies.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw