Jinxiang county in Jining, Shandong province has widely been known as "China's Garlic Town" by providing high-quality garlic and related products to the global market.

Garlic [Photo/IC]

Over the years, Jinxiang has carried out characteristic industry development to expand the value chain of garlic planting and has launched an array of measures to promote intensive agriculture and modern agriculture development.

The county has a garlic planting area of about 46,666 hectares, with an annual output of 800,000 metric tons. There are more than 800 garlic storage and processing enterprises, more than 600 import and export enterprises, and the county has a garlic refrigeration capacity of more than 3 million tons. The products are exported to more than 170 countries and regions.

Jinxiang has also boosted the garlic business of surrounding areas, and their garlic planting area has exceeded 133,333 hectares.

According to scientific research, Jinxiang garlic contains protein, niacin, fat, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, potassium and other nutrients needed by the human body. Many experts deem it as one of the best natural and healthy antibiotic foods on the market.

Jinxiang has also accelerated scientific and technological projects in the field of breeding to improve the quality of garlic.

A local cooperative has joined hands with the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences to set up a garlic industry technology research institute, which is engaged in work related to garlic germplasm innovation, and variety and harvesting improvement.

After more than two years of research, two new varieties have been developed and are expected to enter the market after official approval.

To increase the value of garlic products, Jinxiang has set up 128 processing enterprises above designated size, including one national agricultural industrialization leading enterprise, 10 at the provincial level, and 79 at the municipal level.

It has built one garlic engineering technology research center at the national level, three at the provincial level and 34 at the municipal level, which have launched more than 40 kinds of deep-processing products such as black garlic products, selenium garlic capsules and garlic polysaccharide.