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Packaging the products.
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Kwok Ho, President of Chaoda Modern Agriculture (Holdings) Ltd.
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Chaoda uses scientific planting methods.
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Founded in 1997, Chaoda Modern Agriculture (Holdings) Ltd is
an integrated modern agriculture enterprise engaged in the production
and marketing of high quality organic vegetables and fruits. In
August last year, Chaoda was listed as one of the top 500 famous
and valuable Chinese brands for 2005. In the same year, the company
was also ranked 177th in terms of the overall strength of large
Chinese enterprises.
President and Chairman of the Board Mr. Kwok Ho began his career
in a military enterprise when he was just 14 years of age. In
his early 20s he ventured to Guangzhou, where he entered the electronics
components and parts and home appliances business, earning more
than RMB 10 million in the early 1980s. Then, in the 1990s, he
brought his considerable business acumen and capital to the research
and development of agricultural science, and thus Chaoda, with
its pollution-free fruits and vegetables, was born.
Intensive Farming Management
From Holland’s greenhouses to Israel’s drip irrigation
systems, many modern agricultural development projects use advanced
technologies with intensive farming practices. Meanwhile, China
has found it difficult to intensify its farming methods, as its
farmlands have been distributed to individual farmers under the
“family contracted responsibility system.”
But it seems Chaoda has come up with a local solution. When the
company set up its development base in Fuzhou, Fujian Province,
it started to rent farmlands from the farmers, linking them into
an intensive farming system. Seeing the success of its modern
and efficient farming methods in Fujian, Chaoda followed a similar
strategy when it set up farms in other parts of the country. With
local governments acting as an intermediary, the company rents
land use rights from the farmers and carries out large scale planting.
And the farmers are pretty happy with the deal. Not only do they
get paid rent for the use of their land, Chaoda also pays them
a separate salary for working it.
After spending years in the field, Chaoda has perfected modern
planting techniques for a huge range of organic vegetables and
fruits in different regions, climates and soils. But the company
has recently been using science and technology to standardize
its planting mode with high quality seeds and organic fertilizers.
Technical experts from the group’s research institute directly
supervise planting and cultivation, and all of its products undergo
strict quality control tests before they are shipped to the market.
All quality control procedures from planting and harvesting to
sales are logged, making Chaoda the first agricultural enterprise
in China with a complete agricultural product quality and safety
tracing system.
Moreover, the company has taken advantage of China’s rapid
infrastructure construction to establish a smooth logistics system
and an international multi-tier sales network to ensure its fresh
fruits and vegetables can reach markets across the world. It has
40 fruit and vegetable planting bases in 17 provinces and municipalities
across the country, which can guarantee a steady supply of products
all year round.
When Chaoda started out, its main product was the tomato. Now
the company produces more than 2,000 varieties of fruit and vegetable,
including its self-developed and imported strains. Unlike old
Chinese agricultural enterprises, which focused just on planting,
Chaoda has leaned on an intensive and innovative production model
to achieve wider product lines, more abundant harvests, and thus,
greater profits.
Technologies– Key to Chaoda’s Development
A seed is one of the most powerful and tenacious materials in
the world. As Kwok Ho says, “A seed has the capability to
change the entire world. And our core technologies are the ‘seeds’
of our success. We will never neglect them.” That’s
understandable – Chaoda’s “seeds” have after
all ensured that its production model passed the ISO 9001 and
ISO 14000 standards, and helped it to become the first mainland
agricultural enterprise to be listed in Hong Kong in December
2000.
It is Chaoda’s expert use of science and technology that
has enabled the company to develop this organic mode of cultivation.
Its products are pollution-free from the moment the seeds are
planted in the earth to the time the vegetables arrive at the
dinner table. It has developed more than 200 kinds of fruit, vegetables,
rice, tea and other products that meet international standards.
Chaoda Modern Agriculture (Holdings) Ltd aims to grow into a modern
agriculture model for both China and the world at large.
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