"We are a global soft fruit breeder from Spain and do business worldwide. China is a fast-developing market for us," explains Fan Wenzhuo, executive director and general manager of Planasa China. "Planasa thrives on the members-only model in all countries; growers need to be our members before they buy our varieties. Meanwhile, we provide full technical guidance from production to harvest for members. We also carefully examine the membership, including their business model, awareness of variety protection, sales channels, etc., and all measures to achieve better variety protection.
China's blueberry market has grown sharply, especially in the Yunnan area. Until now, our blueberry varieties are planted on about 1,500 hectares in Yunnan, with classic varieties including 1542, 1545, and 15122. For example, 1542 has large fruit size, good resistance, high yield, and nice flavor, and it can be produced in Yunnan from November to May next year.
Introduce blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry to China
Yunnan has very ideal climate conditions for early blueberry production. Except for the traditional growing way by soil, soilless production has increased a lot here in recent years. Based on a rough calculation, soilless production for blueberries in Yunnan now is more than 100,000 mu, and the potential is huge.
"We have built a nursery in Songming, Yunnan, with an annual production of 5 million seedlings. In the future, we also plan to expand in Guangdong and Sichuan, these are also very interesting markets. As one of the world's largest berry breeders, we hope to bring more quality varieties to China."
"Within the next five years, we also plan to establish our planting farm in Yunnan to build a brand of premium fruit, including blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Berries have a huge consumer market in China, and we hope to drive industry development through good varieties and good cultivation.
The Yunnan blueberry market is still in a high-profit period, and many capital/investors are joining it. This will inevitably lead to fiercer competition and decreased prices and will also enhance innovation, supply chain management, and labor management. Related water and fertilizer technology, AI, robots, and other aspects will be upgraded. In China, the major consumers of blueberries are still in the first-tier cities, how to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost from the origin of Yunnan to the place of consumption is what all practitioners need to consider.
Strengthen the variety protection
"Without the variety protection, a healthy market cannot develop. Compared to 10 years ago, China has made some progress in a variety of protection with better laws, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Planasa has built its team of anti-counterfeiting lawyers. The industry only develops if all industry stakeholders unite to defend variety."
For more information:
Planasa
Li ZhouYan
Email: zli@planasa.com
www.planasa.com