Shanxi seed expert drives growth in Yellow River Basin

Jing Pengfei (middle) and two farmers check on the growth of wheat in Yuncheng, Shanxi, on June 11. ZHU XINGXIN/CHINA DAILY

Jing Pengfei, the 37-year-old head of the agricultural seed station of the Yuncheng Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, has received the 2025 New Era Youth Pioneer award for his role in modernizing seed breeding and crop management systems along the Yellow River Basin.

The award, presented jointly by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China and the All-China Youth Federation, follows a series of State-level agricultural milestones in Yuncheng, a major wheat-producing region in northern China's Shanxi province.

According to data from the local bureau of agriculture, the city's high-quality wheat seed coverage rate has reached 98.5 percent, with total cultivation areas exceeding 93,000 hectares. Yuncheng has established eight national-level and 19 provincial-level seed production bases — the highest concentration within Shanxi — with multiple local crop varieties added to the national registry of crop germplasm (genetic material used for plant breeding).

Jing, a native of Yuncheng, joined the city's agricultural bureau in 2013 after graduating with a genetics degree from a university in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. "Having gained knowledge and skills, I wanted to return to my hometown to work directly on the front line of variety testing and new variety promotion," Jing said.

In 2017, as the only participant from Shanxi, Jing traveled to Germany for a Sino-German youth agricultural capacity-building project. The standardized seed breeding systems and refined cultivation management models abroad helped him clearly identify the shortcomings of local agricultural development.

"Seeing the meticulous management systems for green planting and variety testing overseas, I deeply felt the development gap, and it strengthened my determination to stay rooted at home, improve the quality of our seeds, and vitalize our agriculture," he said.

After returning to China in 2018, he voluntarily applied for village-based assistance work and set a clear goal. "My job is to deliver technology to farmers' hands, making farming worry-free and farmers' incomes grow steadily," he said.

During his tenure as the first Party secretary of Nanwu village in Xiaxian county, he found that the local peach and apricot varieties were aging, farming methods were outdated, and villagers relied on traditional experience, showing little acceptance of new varieties and technologies.

Facing their concerns and skepticism, Jing explained that traditional farming relies on experience, but farming in the new era depends on technology. "I can talk a thousand times, but nothing convinces them like a good harvest from the fields," he said.

Harvesters work a wheat field on saline-alkali soil in Wanrong county, Yuncheng, Shanxi province, on June 12. ZHU XINGXIN/CHINA DAILY

He worked in the fields personally, teaching fruit tree management techniques to farmers and patiently promoting the concept of green planting. "Green pest control doesn't mean no pest control — it means scientific pest control. Reducing pesticide use improves fruit appearance, raises market prices and ensures food safety," he said.

Following his field deployment in Xiaxian county, Jing returned to the Yuncheng seed station to oversee wider regional crop diversification, focusing specifically on utilizing the marginal land resources of the Yellow River floodplain. "Seeds are the 'chip' of agriculture. Every quality seed should become the hope of a bountiful harvest," he said.

Collaborating with local commercial seed enterprises, Jing's department developed a rice-wheat crop rotation system tailored for the region's saline-alkali soils. The project achieved a localized rice seed yield exceeding 4.5 metric tons per hectare, matching or exceeding the quality metrics of traditional southern Chinese rice production zones.

"Conducting rice seed production on the Yellow River floodplain is a practical measure to develop new agricultural productive forces," Jing said. "It further diversifies the seed industry, strengthens the foundation for quality seed breeding, drives local farmers' employment and income growth, empowers village collective economic development, and helps upgrade and improve the efficiency of specialty agriculture."

He added: "Today, seed technology and marketization are accelerating. Compound, professional new-type farmers have become the core force for improving the quality of agricultural seeds."

Contact the writers at chenliang@chinadaily.com.cn