In March 2016, the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government approved the establishment of Wuhan Jingkai Agricultural Development Investment Co, Ltd as one of the eight main battlefields of the economy in the Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone (Hannan), or WEDZ. The company is committed to building national modern demonstration areas of urban agriculture and agricultural science and technology and rural tourism spots within Wuhan urban agglomeration.
Wuhan Jingkai is located in the southwest of the WEDZ, and covers an area of 157.36 square kilometers, which includes three streets: Dongjing, Dengnan and Xiangkou, and four state farms: Wujin, Dongchengyuan, Hannan and Yinlianhu. The company employs the State-owned enterprises model to manage the agricultural park and has built a 8-10 square kilometer core area of modern urban agriculture, centered by Xiangkou. It has also built an investment and financing platform to raise funds and created a model of "platform plus small parks" to upgrade the infrastructure of "1+8" small parks so they can develop multiple forms of modern agriculture. The company has furthermore initiated a "platform plus plantation" method to advance extensive structural reform of the four state farms and organize regional agricultural and land reclamation groups based on the central policy of reform and development of land reclamation. Finally, the company has launched a "platform plus large parks" approach to promote effective integration of agricultural resources in the region and take the lead in achieving agricultural modernization.
Wuhan Jingkai is endowed with a superior geographical position and convenient traffic access. It is joined to the hinterland of the Jianghan Plain and serves as the bridgehead of Wuhan to the southwest of Hubei Province and the northeast of Hunan Province. It is surrounded by water on three sides: the Yangtze River, Tongshun River and Dongjing River; and is adjacent to the intersection of expressways of Beijing-Zhuhai, Shanghai-Chengdu and Fuzhou-Urumqi. It takes only 30 minutes to get to Wuhan city proper, 40 minutes to travel to Wuchang or Hankou Railway Station and 50 minutes to go to Tianhe Airport. The land under the company's control is vast, smooth and fertile. A lot of it is state-owned. The area has a pleasant climate and four distinct seasons, and is blessed with abundant sunshine, rainfall and water.
The company is involved in five agricultural industries: sweet corn, vegetables, fruits, aquaculture and leisure agriculture, and owns more than 20 kinds of green foods. It also controls three provincial leading enterprises, 19 municipal leading enterprises and demonstration cooperatives, and two scientific research bases. The company's sweet corn area covers over 4,000 hectares and the 1,400 hectare vegetable plantation has an annual yield of 260,000 tons. The fruit plantation is 1,000 hectares, and grows grapes, strawberries, watermelons, pears, peaches and mulberries. Magpie Lake has its own cultivation area, producing crabs, ricefield eels, mandarinfish and crayfish. The aquaculture area of Qingcao Lake is 1,247 hectares.
Many well-known enterprises have settled and started doing business in areas controlled by the company, including Zhonghai Cereals & Oils Group, Charoen Pokphand (CP) Aquaculture and Hubei Chuxiang Agricultural Development Investment & Development.
A meeting was held in the WEDZ on Aug 31, emphasizing the importance of adhering to a high-quality, high-tech, and high-added-value development trajectory. The development zone will step up efforts to develop its modern agriculture, intelligent agriculture, and entertaining agriculture in order to accelerate progress in agricultural modernization.
The company's Ecological Leisure Agriculture Development Zone is dedicated to building a rural garden with tourism, leisure, ecological agriculture, healthcare and characteristic towns integrated into one resort in the Tangjiangshan Area. It has spared no effort in creating the Maying River-Jinzhu Ridge Agricultural Leisure Culture Village, the sightseeing sites of leisure agriculture along the Maying River, the breeding base of pelodiscus sinensis (a Chinese soft-shell turtle) and the planting base for sweet corn. The Modern Urban Agriculture Development Zone focuses on developing the core area of modern urban agriculture, planting bases for fruits and flowers and high-quality vegetables, the special aquaculture base and the Chuxiang ecological agriculture base.
Two tasks:
1. Create a national modern agricultural industrial park and cultivate and expand new agricultural business entities.
2. Create a national agricultural high-tech industry demonstration zone, attract top talents to participate in agricultural and rural development, and constantly open up new prospects for talents in the development zone.
Three highlands:
1. Develop a modern agricultural highland
2. Develop a modern seed industry highland
3. Develop an ecological agriculture highland
Four innovation measures:
1. Innovate systems and mechanisms
2. Innovate the operating model
3. Innovate business methods
4. Innovate the management model
Five sectors:
Optimize the characteristic aquatic product sector, strengthen the green vegetable sector, expand the fruit and flower sector, improve performance in the modern agricultural productive service sector, and develop the tourism and sightseeing sector.
