On November 6, the 2023 China • Tongnan Lemon Industry Development Conference was held in Tongnan District, Chongqing. The agriculture and rural affairs authorities of Chongqing, Sichuan, Hainan, and Yunnan signed the Cooperation Agreement on Sci-Tech Innovation in China's Lemon Industry. Based on the actual situation of the lemon industry, the four places will jointly build a sci-tech innovation cluster worth 100 billion yuan (about 13.72 billion U.S. dollars) for the transformation, upgrading, and innovative development of the lemon industry.

On November 6, the 2023 China • Tongnan Lemon Industry Development Conference was held in Tongnan District. (Photo/Shangyou News)

To conserve excellent lemon germplasm resources, Tongnan has focused on seedling cultivation and built a germplasm resource nursery in recent years. It has upgraded the three-level virus-free improved variety breeding system of lemons and built China's largest lemon seedling breeding center, providing healthy lemon seedlings for lemon-producing areas in Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle as well as the entire China and building the nation's No.1 lemon seedling breeding center.

Regarding product research and development (R&D), Chongqing (Tongnan) Agricultural Science City has China's most robust lemon R&D capability. In Tongnan, the "3+N" lemon R&D bases of Huida, Mengtai, and Xuewang have been established, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has approved a laboratory for intensive citrus processing. In addition to developing China's leading lemon six-separation intensive processing technology, the science city produces more than 350 types of high-value-added lemon products.

Tongnan lemons (Photo/Shangyou News)

Regarding earning foreign exchange through exports, "Tongnan Lemon" has been selected as a "brand power" project. Tongnan has built 3,333 hectares of registered lemon export base and China Lemon Trading Center, launched the construction of a substantial agricultural product supply base, and leveraged its location advantages under the Belt and Road Initiative and the strategy of building the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC) to build China's No.1 lemon export base.

Tongnan has developed the lemon index 3.0 by building second-generation industrial internet nodes, developing the digital lemon brain, and releasing China's first digital lemon industry report. This provides the scientific basis for restructuring the national lemon supply and creating China's leading lemon digital brain.

Production of Tongnan lemons (Photo/Shangyou News)

In terms of functional expansion, Tongnan has accelerated the development of healthy lemon lifestyles, built a lemon town with Tongnan characteristics, established China's first lemon expo, and hosted international lemon festivals, lemon carnivals, and other cultural events, creating the No.1 benchmark for lemon integrated development in China. The output value of the lemon industry chain is expected to exceed 7.5 billion yuan this year.

Production of Tongnan lemons (Photo/Shangyou News)

At the conference, the agriculture and rural affairs authorities of Chongqing, Sichuan, Hainan, and Yunnan signed the Cooperation Agreement on Sci-Tech Innovation in China's Lemon Industry. Based on the current situation of the lemon industry, the four places will develop technical innovation, promotion, and application mechanisms before, during, and after production. Further, the four parties will build a science and technology innovation cluster in the lemon industry worth 100 billion yuan, establish a lemon industrial structure with a reasonable division of labor and complementary advantages, and accelerate its transformation, upgrading, and innovation of the lemon industry.

During the ILSTC-Tongnan Lemon South Asian Trade and Whole Industry Chain Signing Ceremony, 37 projects covering food processing, intelligent manufacturing, big data, and other fields were signed, totaling 27.7 billion yuan.