The 2020 Zhuhai Farmers' Harvest & Rural Food festivals got underway in Sanban Village of Hongqi Town as the sun entered the autumnal equinox Sept 22. Online promotions of agricultural products will continue until late October.

Sanzao Crane Dance and other intangible cultural heritages were staged at the opening ceremony. The finale of a dragon boat race on the Sanban River caused its own sensation.

The Culinary Delicacy Zone featured rural specialties such as Hengshan Preserved Duck Bundles (Ya Zha Bao), Dingjiawan Tea Refreshments, Dachikan Open Flame Roast Pork & Spareribs, Doumen Double-Shelled Crab, and Lianzhou Mooncake.

Dragon boat race [Photo by Zhang Zhou / Guanhai App]

Meanwhile, local wax apples, yellow-fin breams, and black tiger shrimps were on display at the Exhibition & Science Popularization Zone for Agricultural Products, where farmers and technical staff promote new agricultural technologies. Also slated were commodity sales through livestreaming and a rural photography competition.

Zhuhai has made remarkable progress concerning agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in recent years. Per capital disposal income of local rural residents rose by 11 percent year-on-year to 29,069 yuan ($4,279) in 2019 -- 2.1 percentage points higher than that of urban residents -- announced Deputy Mayor Liu Jiawen.

Marking Zhuhai's achievements in rejuvenating rural areas, the plaque "Hometown of Yellow-fin Bream" was granted by the China Aquatic Products Processing & Marketing Alliance to Jinwan District. Twelve talents were recognized as Zhuhai Rural Craftsmen.

Five city enterprises signed cooperation agreements to help villages shake off poverty through the Master of Cantonese Cuisine program, under which 500 rural residents in the city have been employed, 120 of them escaping poverty.

The flag Traces of Countryside – Journey of Harvest was also conferred on Zhuhai by the Policy Reform Division & Research Center for Rural Economy of the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs. The agencies had recruited home-returning migrant workers to take park in the festival's celebrations. Huitong Community in Tangjiawan and Doumen's Nanmen Village were named demonstration villages under the cultural program.

The festivals were arranged by the Rural Affairs Office of the Zhuhai CPC Municipal Committee and locally handled by the Jinwan District People's Government.