Nestle coffee production line

A farmer with a family of five spent 180000 yuan last year to build a new house with a second floor of 170square meters. We have all kinds of electrical appliances at home, using solar water heaters for bathing, LPG for cooking, and a semi-new Japanese car. The farmer's name is Hua Hongyuan. In China, after more than 20 years of reform and opening up, there are many farmers who can live like this, especially in the economically developed eastern coastal areas, some farmers may be richer. However, if you know that Hua Hongyuan lives in Simao, Yunnan Province, and there are 175 farmers in Dakaihe Village, many of them live in the same house as him, they will feel that this matter is of great significance.

Simao, a small southwestern border city with a population of only more than 2 million, is famous at home and abroad because it is the birthplace of tea trees in the world. More than 1000 years ago, Chinese tea spread to the world from the "Ancient Tea-Horse Road" here. In China, Simao City is famous for two points, one is Pu'er tea, the other is poverty. Simao City now has jurisdiction over 1 county-level city and 9 autonomous counties. In 2005, there were still eight state-level poverty-stricken counties in Simao City, with an annual per capita income of 860 yuan. How did the farmers shake off poverty and become rich in this land? when we came to Simao from Beijing on January 17, we heard a popular saying here: "the coffee growers live in tile houses and the grain growers live in thatched huts." Nestl é opened coffee cultivation what Simao farmers call "Nestle Coffee" is actually a kind of coffee beans, its scientific name is Columbia small Grain Coffee. Coffee beans are mainly divided into two categories: small seeds and medium seeds. The small seed coffee beans originally produced in Central and South America are high-quality varieties, which are in short supply in the international market, and the price is 35% higher than that of other coffee. Farmers call it "Nestle Coffee" because the coffee seedlings they grow are cultivated by Nestl é, the techniques and management methods of growing coffee are taught by Nestl é technicians, and they learn about coffee quality and market price from Nestl é. The coffee beans they harvest are also sold to Nestle. It was growing coffee that put them on the road to getting rich. Coffee is a kind of crop with high economic value, which is called the three largest beverages in the world together with tea and cocoa, and its output and consumption ranks first among the three beverages. It is an important product whose trading volume is only inferior to that of oil in the international market. It is understood that the quality of coffee depends on the environment in which it grows, while small-grain coffee has higher requirements on the environment. Suitable for planting near the Tropic of Cancer. Simao area of Yunnan Province is just the most suitable for growing small-grain coffee. In the early years, although there were ideal innate conditions here, small seeds of coffee were rarely grown. Simao really began to industrialize the cultivation of small-grain coffee from 16 years ago, and Nestle was the initiator of Yunnan to become a coffee-growing area. Because Nestle imparted the advanced technology of growing coffee in the world to farmers, the starting point of coffee planting industry in Yunnan is very high. According to David Sultan, director of coffee and beverages for Nestl é Greater China, when Nestl é set up a joint venture in China in 1988, an investigation found that China produced almost no small seed coffee beans. Adhering to the business philosophy of "the company's activities in any country must be in line with local interests in order to develop sustainable business", Nestl é began to promote the cultivation of small-grain coffee through government help in Yunnan.

Nestl é has established an experimental demonstration farm covering an area of 64 hectares in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. More than 30 kinds of coffee trees have been collected from all over the world for many years, and six varieties most suitable for planting in Yunnan have been selected for promotion. For more than 10 years, the farm has trained thousands of local farmers and agricultural technicians to teach them soil erosion control, environmental protection, pest control and high-yield techniques. Agronomists from Nestl é headquarters have been stationed in Yunnan for a long time, commuting between the farms in Xishuangbanna and Simao twice a week to teach farmers how to grow coffee.

At first, farmers were reluctant to grow coffee because they didn't know the future. The government has implemented a number of preferential policies, including providing small loans to farmers to buy fertilizers, seedlings and processing machines, and negotiating with Nestl é to buy coffee beans at a protective price. In 1989, Nestl é signed a 14-year agreement with the local government, in which it promised to buy coffee at the spot market price in the United States, uncapped as a safeguard for farmers' interests, and set a minimum purchase price. At the same time, Nestl é provides loans for technicians, seedlings and even interest-free farm tools, and promises not to own land or fixed assets.

At present, the coffee planting area in Simao City has reached 10400 hectares, with a total of more than 15000 farmers. The aforementioned Hua Hong Yuan family grows 4.6 hectares of coffee with an annual income of nearly 100000 yuan. Many farmers get rich by growing coffee. Nestle alone invests nearly 100 million yuan in Simao every year. The market taught farmers to attach importance to quality in the early years. Simao farmers grew grain with primitive extensive type, low yield and low income. The income of 0.06 hectares of corn is only 200 yuan. And growing coffee taught farmers how to standardize management. Li Zhongheng, one of the leaders of the Nestle project, was the then Simao district commissioner who first saw the opportunity for coffee cultivation to improve farmers' planting structure and increase farmers' income, and went all out to promote this cooperation. After retirement, Li Zhongheng was hired as the farmer of Simao Coffee Experimental Farm, which supplies Nestl é 60 tons of coffee a year. Today, Simao is not only Nestl é's largest coffee supply base, but also accounts for 95% of Yunnan's coffee production.

In the coffee garden, we saw a row of green grass growing under each row of coffee trees, and the farmers told us that they had to be hoed off in the past. Nestle technicians taught them that grass can consolidate the soil, prevent soil erosion and protect the environment. When we ask farmers how to ensure the quality of coffee? Farmers said that in accordance with the standard fertilization, medication, pruning management, and special emphasis on no DDT residues. Farmers all know that if they want to sell coffee beans to Nestl é, they must meet the standards and better understand that high-quality coffee beans can sell at a good price.

The inspection results of the Food quality Supervision, Inspection and Test Center of the Ministry of Agriculture (Chengdu) in 2004 and 2005 showed that all the indexes of Simao coffee beans were qualified and the agricultural residue was zero.

Nowadays, farmers no longer emphasize price protection. Simao farmers are probably the first Chinese farmers to pay attention to the spot market in New York. The Nestl é acquisition station publishes the price of the New York market every day, and some farmers also learn to check the price of the trading website themselves, learn to look at the trend according to fluctuations, and learn to analyze when it is more cost-effective to sell coffee. Despite Nestl é's stringent acquisition requirements, farmers are willing to sell the best coffee to Nestl é, which, in addition to price, has won the trust of locals for its service and reputation. Yunnan Coffee goes to the World on January 20 this year, Nestle Coffee, the world's largest coffee brand, officially launched the first can of instant coffee made entirely from premium Yunnan coffee beans. David Sultan said: "100% Yunnan high-grade pure coffee is a selection of world-quality coffee beans produced in China, it will further enhance the love of Nestle coffee among the Chinese people." 100% Yunnan high-grade pure coffee indicates that the development of Yunnan coffee industry has entered a new era. "

David Sultan said: "the quality of Yunnan coffee beans is completely comparable to that of some South American countries." Although there is not much publicity about Yunnan coffee beans in China, its reputation has spread in the industry around the world. Since 1997, Yunnan has been able to supply all the small seed coffee ingredients Nestl é needs without having to import them from abroad. "

Simao is the main producing area of coffee beans in Yunnan. at present, the annual output of coffee beans is about 15000 tons, and most of the products of good grade are acquired by multinational corporations. Nestl é buys 5000 tons a year. As a big country of coffee consumption and production, some coffee producers in Germany and Japan also come here to purchase. The International Coffee Organization believes that the quality of Yunnan small-grain coffee is similar to that of Colombian small-grain coffee, and the product market competitiveness is strong.

According to the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture, the planting area of coffee in Yunnan Province has reached 21300 hectares, with an output of 22000 tons in 2004, with an output value of 220 million yuan. After years of development, coffee cultivation in Yunnan has initially shown good economic, social and ecological benefits, and some areas suitable for planting are making efforts to cultivate small-grain coffee into a pillar industry. At the same time, the output of Yunnan coffee processing enterprises has accounted for 90% of domestic roasted coffee products, and the processing scale and processing technology rank first in China. Yunnan coffee has become the fourth largest variety of agricultural products in Yunnan Province, and it is known as the "three swordsmen" of Yunnan agricultural products export together with flowers and edible fungi.

Commenting on Simao's coffee industry, relevant experts said that for Simao, a relatively backward mountain area, growing coffee is a way to get rich according to local conditions. This model of multinational corporations + farmers provides a new way for China's agricultural products to go to the world. Local governments should seek and encourage multinational food production enterprises in China to cooperate with farmers to form a characteristic agricultural industry and improve the world popularity of China's agricultural products with the help of the reputation of multinational corporations.