Provenance, as the source of the entire agricultural industry chain and also the link with the highest added value, can be called the chip of agricultural modernization. It is stated in the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Doing Good Job in Key Work of Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2022 clearly that we should vigorously promote the tackling of core key agricultural technologies such as provenances, comprehensively implement the seed industry revitalization action plan, promote the construction of national major innovation platforms in the seed industry, and launch major agricultural biological breeding projects.

As one of the first batch of agricultural green development demonstration areas in China and the first in Shanghai, Chongming District has continued to enjoy the ecological advantages of intensive planting, and has made the protection and development of characteristic provenances the top priority, so as to promote the green rise of modern agriculture.

In recent years, since Chongming has been continuing collecting and protecting high-quality provenances in the region, and has been continuing enabling the development of provenances with cutting-edge technology, a number of provenance enterprises with advanced technology and high added value have been in the brewing and initial stages. Chongming are accelerating to realize large scale, standardization and industrialization of its most distinctive products, such as white goats, Shawutou pigs, dwarf spinach, white lentils. Chongming's provenance agriculture is moving into the fast lane at full speed. ‍

Carrying out Large Scale Protection of Livestock, Keep Most Local Flavor

Cattle, goats and pigs, known as the "Three Sacrifices", have always played an extraordinary role in Chinese food culture and folk customs. In recent years, Chongming, firmly grasping the principle of "one goat, one pig and one cow", has been constantly innovating technology and deeply cultivating the market, to continue to strengthen the big article of animal provenance.

Chongming White Goat is a domestic animal variety under national key protection and development, and is also one of the most representative and well-known characteristic provenances of the island. The meat is soft, not too fat and neither too thin, and has little smell. It has the effect of nourishing blood and keeping out the wind and cold. It is said in the folk that eat one more white goat and wear one less old cotton padded jacket. In addition, its wool can be used to manufacture high-end brushes and brushes. Goat intestines are the key raw materials for medical sutures and musical instrument wires. Chongming White Goat is a treasure all over.

However, Chongming White Goat also has the disadvantage of small stature and slow growth, so farmers are more willing to introduce foreign sheep or hybrid goats with large size and high yield, such as Boer sheep, if the breeding income is not good. As a result, the living space of authentic white goats was squeezed, and their breeding scale once shrank.

In order to help Chongming understand the difficulties of goats, since 2007, researchers from the Shanghai Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences have gone through villages and towns in Chongming, through door-to-door sorting, compiled the “Research on Breeding and Preservation Technology of Chongming White Goat Fine Germplasm”, deciphered the unique genetic code of white goats, and accumulated a lot of first-hand information for its species identification, breeding selection, rapid propagation and healthy breeding. In addition, the Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences has also established Chongming white Goats Frozen Embryos and Sperm Bank, which uses biotechnology to retain pure white goat genes for emergencies. Since 2009, Chongming District Animal Epidemic Prevention and Control Center has established Chongming White Goat Standardized Farm in Sanxing Town. By 2015, it has achieved mechanized production and information management. The technical personnel of the Center guide the selection and breeding of fine individuals, scientifically promote the expansion and breeding, and improve the breeding technology and yield of white goats.

In order to eliminate barriers to production and marketing, in recent years, Chongming District has made efforts to relieve the bottleneck problem caused by the lack of goat seedlings and the lack of slaughtering and processing links, and gradually opened up Chongming's "two arteries" of goat industry provenance and product circulation. Since this year, the Chongming District Agriculture and Rural Committee, based on the advantages of local breeds of Chongming White Goats, has started the implementation of the pilot project of white goat order farming of rural collective economic organizations. With the goal of unified supply, buy back and technical service of white goats in the whole region of Chongming, it strives to achieve the multi linkage of village collective economic organizations, Chongming White Goat leading enterprises, farmers, etc., further encourages farmers to raise capable ewes, expand the overall breeding scale, and thus promote the stable development of Chongming White Goat provenance agriculture.

The older generation of Chongming people may still remember the delicacy of Chongming Shawutou pigs. With fat head, big ears and wrinkled face, Shawutou pigs are ugly and cute in appearance, and their meat is delicious. It was once the "favorite" of Chongming people. Compared with the common foreign breeding pigs on the market, Shawutou pigs have the advantages of strong vitality, cold resistance, rough feeding resistance, strong reproductive capacity, etc., and are easy to be raised by farmers. However, because of its long feeding cycle, low lean meat rate and other shortcomings, Shawutou pigs gradually lost in the market competition.

In order to preserve this vital agricultural provenance and protect the "nostalgia on the top of tongue" of Chongming people, the Chongming Breeding Livestock Farm undertakes the key mission of collecting, protecting, breeding and purifying Shawutou pigs. "Over the years, we have visited farmers and folk farms, collected all 8 blood lineages of Shawutou original breeding pigs, and bred them in a systematic way, so that each 'family' can keep growing." The relevant person in charge of the breeding livestock farm said, "for the development and cultivation of provenance agriculture, this is the 'hardest family foundation'". In recent years, the market demand for differentiation has gradually increased, and consumers' enthusiasm for the taste of "original ecology" has continued to increase. The Shawutou pig also has the opportunity to "rise again". "During the Spring Festival this year, we tested the market in the form of gift boxes, and the response was good." Xu Zhonghui, General Manager of Shanghai Shawutou Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., said that in the next few years, large-scale breeding will gradually spread and occupy a larger market share, so Shawutou Pigs will have an promising future.

In addition to white goats, Shawutou pigs and other traditional breeds of the island, Chongming also undertakes the important mission of living conservation and provenance development for Shanghai buffalo. As a large agricultural region, Chongming has a profound agricultural culture, and has always kept a large number of live buffaloes of good breed. As a pilot area for protecting livestock genetic resources and promoting sustainable development of provenance, Chongming fully reflects the Chongming responsibility and Shanghai standard of provenance agriculture. At present, the “Research on Shanghai Buffalo Germplasm Characteristics and Protection System”, led by Shanghai Animal Epidemic Prevention and Control Center and jointly participated by Shanghai Special Breeding Industry Association, has been approved as the Project of Science and Technology for Promoting Agriculture by the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Committee in 2022. The Shanghai Buffalo Breeding Farm, located in Chongming, has also entered the preparatory construction stage. ‍

Led by Biotechnology, Featured Vegetables Go Popular

Chongming, located at the "end of the river and the head of the sea", has unique advantages in water, soil, forest and gas. Its superior natural resource endowments have also created a lot of germplasm resources of characteristic agricultural products. "Only Chongming can produce crispy taro with pure taste." Shen Zhibin, a farmer, said, "The ground water level on the island is high, and the soil is weakly alkaline, which has a great impact on the taste of taro."

However, since the 1990s, a large number of high-yield vegetable varieties have been introduced and planted, and many Chongming characteristic vegetables have gradually degenerated, and the highlights are no longer obvious, which has sounded the provenance alarm. In the face of the adverse situation, all parties in Chongming took active actions to strengthen the safety dam of provenance through various measures. Among the people, there are many farmers like Shen Zhibin who, driven by a sense of responsibility, go from house to house to collect the "authentic Chongming flavor" scattered in the farmlands, and use the "local method" to explore seed recovery. Since 2008, Chongming Vegetable Technology Department has started the systematic conservation of characteristic vegetable provenance. The Chongming District Vegetable Station has systematically numbered and classified the collected "ancient, rare, special and excellent" crop germplasm resources. At present, a total of 347 seeds in three categories have been preserved.

Relying on the latest biotechnology, Chongming continues to empower the development and utilization of characteristic vegetable provenances. Since 2020, the Chongming District Vegetable Station has set up a professional tissue culture room to focus on Chongming dwarf spinach, crispy taro and other local varieties, and carried out purification, rejuvenation, seed virus-free and other tests to achieve the protection and development of germplasm resources by professional technical means. In the tissue culture room, there are autoclaves, ultra clean workbenches, anatomical microscopes, and various professional reagents. Unlike traditional farmland, which is planted in soil, vegetables here are all displayed on shelves and rooted in bottles and jars. Through the application of plant tissue culture technology, the staff accurately controlled the temperature, humidity, light and other conditions, and continued to carry out the test.

With strong technical support, the identification of Chongming vegetable varieties is on the way. It is learnt that the Chongming District Vegetable Station plans to obtain 4 varieties of identification in the next 3 years, which will enable Chongming's characteristic agricultural products to obtain professional, high-end and unique "identity", with the market differentiation and market perception effect to be greatly improved. At the same time, the Chongming District Agriculture and Rural Committee focused on several Chongming characteristic vegetables, vigorously promoted the growth of planting scale and the expansion of planting scope, and realized the same frequency resonance of large-scale, industrialization and provenance technology. Nowadays, single varieties such as dwarf spinach, white lentil, crispy taro, red skin potato, local yam and so on have been planted on a scale of more than 30 mu, while Chongming honeydew and green skin eggplant have been planted on a scale of more than 100 mu. Business entities conforming to Chongming green ecological planting can sign large-scale planting agreements with the Chongming District Agriculture and Rural Committee and get subsidies.

In the future, all parties in Chongming will further integrate their efforts, focus on the conservation, development and utilization of germplasm resources, use modern technologies such as molecular biology to improve and upgrade featured varieties, and promote and lay a good foundation for industrialization. On the other hand, they will pay more attention to the transformation and implementation of provenance scientific and technological achievements, accelerate the introduction of more new varieties, new technologies and new equipment, actively cultivate modern provenance enterprises, striving to achieve the landing and flowering of provenance economy. ‍

Promoting Provenance Brands, Starting with One Crab

To protect germplasm resources and promote seed industry research is to realize the autonomy and controllability of the whole agricultural industry chain. Although the current market income is not its core goal, it is undoubtedly very beneficial to the long-term development and ultimate "realization" of provenances. At present, relying on independent online sales platform and new retail platforms such as Hema and Dingdong, Chongming District has launched a batch of characteristic agricultural products with the logo of "Chongming", accumulating reputation for high-quality agricultural products with unique provenance in Chongming.

Among many characteristic agricultural products, Chongming Qingshui Crab has the most representative and typical significance in its history of development and prosperity. Located in the estuary of the Yangtze River and has the special hydrological characteristics of the transition between salt and fresh water, the three islands of Chongming have always been the place where wild river crabs (i.e., Qingshui Crabs, with the scientific name of Chinese Mitten Crabs) breed their offspring. Every year in early autumn, river crabs gather in the surrounding waters of Chongming to breed the most vigorous juvenile crabs. Therefore, Chongming is not only an important production area of river crabs in China since ancient times, but also the most critical link in the chain of river crab breeding, provenance inheritance and development, known as the "Town of Crab".

However, Chongming lacks the ecological conditions of large water surface with many aquatic plants and good water quality, and the intersection of salt and fresh water also leads to the slow growth of river crabs. The local Qingshui Crab is too small to sell at a high price despite its proud meat quality, which greatly restricts the development of related industries.

In order to transform Chongming Qingshui Crabs from "small hairy crabs" to "hairy crabs", all parties in Chongming worked together to pool high-end intellectual resources of colleges and universities to jointly promote the upgrading of provenance. Since 2008, Chongming and Shanghai Ocean University have cooperated to set up a river crab research institute to improve the breeding mode, improve product specifications and jointly strengthen Chongming's river crab industry. In 2010, Shanghai launched the construction of river crab industry system, with Chongming as the main implementation base. In 2015, the "Jianghai 21" jointly declared by Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai Fisheries Research Institute, Shanghai Chongming County Fisheries Technology Promotion Station, Shanghai Baodao Crab Industry Co., Ltd., Shanghai Fudao Fisheries Professional Cooperative and other units was approved as a new variety of Chinese mitten crab, which represented that the Chongming river crab industry entered a new stage of development.

"'Jianghai 21' combines the male parent and female parent with different excellent traits to produce a complete set, which better aggregates the respective typical traits of the male parent and female parent, and has the basic characteristics of the original species of the Yangtze River of 'green back, white belly, golden claw, yellow hair'." Wang Jun, a doctor from the School of Fisheries and Life Sciences of Shanghai Ocean University, said that under the same feeding conditions, the growth rate of "Jianghai 21" was 22.02% faster than that of the control group, with a high proportion of large-sized commercial crabs, more than 50% of male crabs more than or equal to 200g, and more than 33% of female crabs more than or equal to 150g. With such an excellent provenance and scientific ecological breeding mode, the yield, specification and quality of Chongming Qingshui Crabs have achieved a rapid leap.

Under the active attempt of agricultural operators such as Baodao Xiezhuang, the Chongming Qingshui Crab industry has rapidly completed innovation and upgrading in terms of green breeding mode, disease prevention, water quality control, deep processing of river crabs, marketing, brand building, etc. The brand new "Crab Forest" type undergrowth breeding mode is not only highly compatible with Chongming's characteristic ecological base, but also realizes the valuable exploration of ecological cycle and garden style breeding. It provides valuable experience for the follow-up development of the industry.

Today, Chongming Qingshui Crabs have become a upscale food and a famous card of Chongming's characteristic provenance agriculture. Taking this opportunity, more similar cases are in progress. "We will extensively introduce new and excellent varieties, attract high-quality scientific research teams to carry out innovative research in Chongming, strive to promote the implementation of variety rights or patent rights, and strive to form a batch of new and excellent products." An official of Chongming District Agriculture and Rural Committee said.

Provenance is the "chip" of agriculture, and also the "smart hand" of Chongming District to promote the development of modern ecological agriculture. Next, Chongming will strengthen the top-level design of industrial development, further promote the industrial transformation and upgrading on the basis of ensuring the effective supply of high-quality agricultural products, actively promote the further gathering of funds, talents, projects and other resources around the aspects of provenance purification, rejuvenation, development and industrial development, accelerate the building of a peak plateau of modern urban agriculture in Shanghai, and strive to provide a model case for the whole country.