Bayberries ripen at this time of year in Shuijinwo village, Yuxi town, Yizhang county, Chenzhou city. Red bayberries hang all over the branches, giving out their unique fruit fragrance when breeze blows.

In Shuijinwo Village, in its thousand-acre bayberry orchard, people were seen busy picking the fruits and tasting them. Refrigerated vans loaded with fresh red bayberries were ready to set out for different parts of the country. The orchard, which is usually quiet, was full of busy scenes on May 30.  

According to statistics, Shuijinwo village can receive 500,000 tourists picking bayberries every year. A characteristic agriculture industry, with the combination of production and sales, is improving the lives of the villagers.

“Thanks to the good ecological environment, favorable climate and good soil, the bayberries grown in our village are particularly sweet and juicy. However, the once poor transportation facilities made it difficult to transport the fruits out of the village to distant cities. Farmers could only sell them in the surrounding towns, which brought a relatively low income, and they had to watch the fruits rot in despair,” said Hu Bo, secretary of Shuijinwo village. Now, the connected expressway network, along with the rapid development of logistics, express delivery industry and e-commerce, enables the bayberries in Shuijin village to be sold out across the country.

“Now customers can place orders on various e-commerce platforms such as WeChat, Taobao and Douyin, before farmers deliver the packages at their homes. The vacuum-packed fruits are delivered through expressways, which can reach the customers’ homes in one day or even half day,” Hu Bo noted. Over 40 refrigerated vans transport bayberries on expressways every day, delivering the fruits to the whole country in 24 hours. Whether people live in Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang or China's northeastern provinces, they can eat bayberries from Shuijinwo village.

“Our cooperative delivered a total of 45,000 packages in 2020. According to the current situation, the number is expected to exceed 50,000 in 2021,” said Wu Qiong, the head of the cooperative. Over 10 cooperatives like his plant and sell bayberries across the country.

The expressways make the fresh bayberries of Shuijinwo Village accessible for people all over the country. “Convenient transportation is the most important factor for fruit business. It takes four and a half hours to get to Changsha via the expressways. Since bayberries were put on the market at the end of May, my five companions and I have been busy transporting the fruits to Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places,” said a van driver.

Through nearly 30-year development, there are bayberry orchards of more than 10,000 mu (about 667 hectares) in Shuijinwo village, with annual output up to 5,000 tons. Shuijinwo village is now the largest bayberry planting base in the southern Hunan, which  increases villagers’ income by tens of thousands of yuan.