From 'orange capital' to 'vegetable capital'

Under a scorching afternoon sun, Li Zhengfen opened a patio umbrella and plugged it into the metal holder before taking out a small, color-faded blue plastic stool and putting her 1-year-old swarthy son into a plastic basket.

The vegetable farmer, in her 30s, was about to start her day's work at a farm in Longnan county in the city of Ganzhou, in southern Jiangxi province, which borders Fujian province to the east and Guangdong province to the south. Wearing dirt-covered rain boots, she bent over, reaping Chinese cabbages, or bok choy, with a cutter in her right hand and using her left hand to put them into a basket strapped to her back.