![]() ![]() 7’s ground zero, what an Israeli survivor lost. More than 2.5 million people's lives changed. ![]() Incomes have doubled, unemployment has halved, and ecological balance has been regained. Rain that once had washed away land and flooded the region with poverty now nourishes the apple trees and brings wealth. Dams were constructed terraces were carved out by hand. In 1994, the World Bank and China launched one of the largest development projects on earth to reclaim the land. Desertification set in, which the World Bank referred to as "not a natural phenomenon, but one caused by the hopelessness of poverty." As deforestation increased, so did erosion. Their land, located on the Loess Plateau, had rich soil, but it was easily washed away. Farmers here were subsistence farmers and herders. The Fengs go back five generations as farmers, but they haven't always grown apples. They didn't look as if they were growing apples at all: Small brown paper bags were used to cover each apple, warding off pests.įeng has been farming this land for more than 20 years, but things really started to change in the 1990s, when the government began developing the region's apples and brought in scientists to teach the locals modern techniques. The trees were smaller than the apple trees I've come to know in the Midwest. His orchard sits close enough to a brand-new electric station that the hum is audible. Peace A plan for Gaza’s future is taking shape. He handed me a pink parasol to block the sun. ![]() He didn't have a car yet, but he did have a motorcycle with a trailer on the back in which he placed a wooden stool for me to sit on. The next day he took me to visit the orchard. "All the apple farmers are buying cars, and we need bigger streets," Feng explained. I could barely hear the invitation over the pounding jackhammers and the swinging picks. That's why I went there last August: I wanted to see what that meant for Chinese apple farmers. Nearly 60 percent of apple juice sold in the United States is imported from China, according to US Department of Agriculture data. He is an apple farmer and when we got off the bus, he invited me to visit his farm. All this anticipates an apple tourist boom to match the apple-production explosion here.Īcross the aisle on the bus, a grandfather – Feng Zi Han – held his chubby-cheeked baby granddaughter. At the core of the apple is an empty convention center next to it is the apple museum and apple hotel. My bus from Xi'an, China, passed by the giant apple-shaped structure on the edge of the city of Luochuan. ![]()
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