Huaxi to build pepper cultivation, processing bases

This year, Huaxi district in Guiyang -- capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province -- plans to build 3,500 mu (233 hectares) of pepper cultivation and processing centers in Qingyan and Maiping towns, as well as in Maling township.

The bases will be divided into four specialized areas to better meet the needs of the market and variety cultivation: processing, vegetable pepper, germplasm resource protection -- by which plant breeders aim to extend the range of genetic variability in crop plants -- and high-yield demonstrations.

With its bright red color and full flavor, Huaxi pepper is deeply loved by the people of Guizhou.

At present, Huaxi has a pepper planting area under cultivation of more than 10,000 mu and more than 5,000 farmers have participated in the construction of the pepper bases.

The per mu yield of fresh pepper is more than 3,500 kilograms and the yield from dried pepper is 300 kg, while the income per mu is more than 7,000 yuan ($1,080).

In 2020, Huaxi invested 13.4 million yuan to implement its pepper processing industry production line construction project, bringing in the Guiyang Jinyuzheng Flavor Food Factory to build a 35,000 metric-ton pepper industry production chain, an oil pepper product production line, a filling production line and a pickled pepper production line.

It also brought in Guizhou Lihe Agricultural Technology Co to complete the construction of a high-quality Huaxi pepper processing plant with an annual output of 600 tons.

The plant will officially start operations in June this year and is expected to process 40 tons of fresh pepper and 5 tons of finished dried pepper every day.