China: Kingdom of Tobacco Keeps Promoting Ecological Leaf Tobacco Growing

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 09/05/2011

Southwest China's Yunnan Province - the largest tobacco-producing region in China known as the kingdom of tobacco - has over recent years kept promoting the growing of ecological leaf tobacco in the province, in efforts to permanently maintain its status as the leading high-quality leaf tobacco producer in China. Recently, the 1,000-mu (66.7 hectares) of organic leaf tobacco at the leaf tobacco plantation known as Boshang Manor in Lincang City has matured. Grown under the management of the strict Good Agricultural Practice system, with biological prevention and control of pests and plant diseases, and through application of biological fertilizer and use of biological clean energy, the high-quality, ecological and safe organic leaf tobacco with local characteristics will be used for the production of high-quality cigarettes of the Yuxi brand family, under the name of Yuxi (Manor), by Hongta Group. In keeping promoting the growing of ecological leaf tobacco in the province, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company has launched Operation Golden Corridor designed to establish an ecological tobacco-growing zone involving 50 counties and county-level cities in 10 prefectures and prefecture-level cities lying around 23 degrees north latitude, ranging from Luoping County of Qujing City in the east to Tengchong County of Baoshan City in the west, and from Ningpu Couty of Pu'er City in the south to Luliang County of Qujing City in the north. Under Operation Golden Corridor, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company is planning to establish by the end of 2015 a total of 50 ecological parks and also a total of 50 ecological manors for growing tobacco, with an annual production capacity of 5 million dan (250,000 tons) of high-quality ecological leaf tobacco with local characteristics. In this endeavor, it has already taken a lead in establishing four major ecological parks - respectively in Jietou of Baoshan City, Mengxianhe in Pu'er City, Baoshang of Lincang City and Puzhehei of Wenshan City. Over recent years, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company has managed to provide technological support for tobacco growing in the province. Since 2008, the tobacco-growing zones in Yunnan applying Aphidius Gifuensis Ashmead to prevent and control the spread of aphids have reduced the use of chemical pesticides by more than 360 tons, saving the cost of prevention and control of aphids to the tune of 140 million yuan (21.5 million U.S. dollars). Aphidius Gifuensis is an important parasitic natural enemy of aphids and it plays an important role in controlling aphids population. Besides, there has been the application of other biological or physical ways of preventing and controlling the spread of pests, including the use of sex attractants and solar insect disinfestations lamps, contributing to sharply reducing the use of pesticides. So far in 2011, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company has greatly extended application of Aphidius Gifuensis Ashmead to prevent and control the spread of aphids to 4.5 million more mu (300,000 more hectares) of tobacco plantations in the province. In 2012, application of Aphidius Gifuensis Ashmead to prevent and control the spread of aphids is expected to cover all tobacco fields across Yunnan. In 2011, in efforts to meet the demand of competitive cigarette products for further market development, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company has designated 3.3066 million mu (220,440 hectares) of tobacco fields for exclusively growing high-quality tobacco with local characteristics, contributing to further demonstrating the styles of high-quality leaf tobacco with local characteristics of Yunnan. Enditem