The purpose of this reporter's visit is Kubuqi Desert, the seventh largest desert in China, located in Fiona Fang, with an area of 18600 square kilometers.
In Inner Mongolia, there used to be a jingle: in the 1950s, cattle and sheep were scarce; In the 1960 s, there was chaos in land reclamation; In the 1970s, the Sha people had nothing to hide; In the 1980s, man and sand faced each other; In the 1990s, desert resources were a treasure.
More than 20 years ago, the Kubuqi desert was barren and dusty. The wind and sand come in and out, and even the birds have stopped for years, which is called "the sea of death".
Nowadays, Kubuqi has clear water and blue sky, lush vegetation, seagulls and birds, criss-crossing roads crossing sand, giving consideration to ecology and people's livelihood, and controlling sand and getting rich simultaneously. The booming sand industry turned this "sea of death" into a veritable gold mine.
Salix: From Poker to "Cash Tree"
Fuyuanquan Liushaji is 40 kilometers away from Dalat Banner in Ordos, and was built by Dongda Mongolian King Group. The Group plans to build a Salix base with a scale of 3 million mu, with a total investment of 290 million yuan.
Feng Junqi, deputy director of the office of the Mongolian King of Dongda University, told the reporter: "In the past, farmers and herdsmen used Salix as firewood because of their low enthusiasm for planting and managing Salix. Due to the rich coal in Ordos, many farmers and herdsmen are even reluctant to cut down Salix for fire, resulting in 60% Salix becoming dead branches in the desert because it cannot be leveled in time. "
The reporter learned in the local area that Salix psammophila, as one of the main tree species for sand control, not only has a strong function of wind erosion and sand fixation, but also is a good raw material for papermaking, biomass power generation and animal feed.
Salix psammophila is an excellent raw material for papermaking and paperboard, and its total fiber content is 75.83%. In cooperation with the National Paper Research Institute, Dongda Mongolian King Group has developed a paper-making technology for producing high-strength corrugated paper and linerboard with Salix as raw material. Cartons made of Salix are environmentally friendly and have good strength, which is especially suitable for food packaging industry.
Feng Junqi told reporters: "Salix can not only make paper, but also make particleboard for furniture."
After leaving the Salix base, the reporter and his party came to Dongda Linsha Industrial Particleboard Factory. The raw material of particleboard is Salix. Feng Junqi told the reporter: "This particleboard factory started construction in 20 10, with a planned investment of nearly 400 million yuan and a designed annual production scale of 654.38+10,000 cubic meters. It is expected to be put into production in the second half of this year. "
The reporter saw that the equipment in the factory has been installed and the factory building has been completed. Moreover, not far from the factory, Fengshuiliang 8000 kW photovoltaic power station is under construction. The reporter saw that rows of solar panels have been installed. This solar power station built in the desert will supply power to the surrounding factories in the future.
In addition, the tender branches and strips, which account for about 0/5% of Salix psammophila weight/kloc-0, are rich in plant protein, and can be processed into high-quality feed for cattle, sheep and rabbits after intercropping with Salix psammophila.
Salix psammophila is also an excellent biomass power generation material. Among the psammophytes, Salix psammophila has the highest calorific value, which is equivalent to that of ordinary electric coal, and the harmful gases and residues produced by combustion are very few. In addition to using Salix to generate electricity, enterprises can also directly sell electricity to obtain economic benefits, and their "green power" attribute can also trade carbon rights internationally. The reporter learned locally that in the Mu Us Desert, a company used Salix as a biomass power generation project, which has become the first project in the world to directly generate electricity by using desert shrub biomass.
In Kubuqi Desert, after the emergence of Salix processing enterprises represented by the King of East Mongolia, they led local farmers and herdsmen to plant Salix in large quantities, which not only effectively controlled the local desertification hazard, significantly improved the ecological environment, but also found a way out for Salix. Local farmers and herdsmen increased their income by planting Salix, and the original matchstick has now become a "cash cow".
Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch: The "King of Medicine" in the Desert
Yili Group has also discovered the utilization value of desert in the process of sand prevention and control construction for more than 20 years. There are many rare natural plants such as licorice, Caragana korshinskii, sunflower, astragalus, ammopiptanthus mongolicus and 160 kinds of rare desert xerophytes and Chinese herbal medicines in the depths of Kubuqi desert.
It is this humble licorice that not only shoulders the task of preventing sand and protecting rivers, but also is a precious Chinese herbal medicine in the desert. Inner Mongolia is also an important producing area of licorice in China. In particular, Ural licorice, which grows in Kubuqi desert, is famous in the field of traditional Chinese medicine for its red skin, fine skin, heavy bone and high medicinal value. Its "Northwest Gully" licorice and "Liangwai" licorice are of excellent quality.
Wang Wenbiao, chairman of Yili Resources Group, is a native of desert. He loves and hates the desert: "The desert poses a threat to human beings, but there are also many rare medicinal materials in the desert. In Kubuqi Desert, there are nearly 5 million mu of pollution-free and pollution-free sandy flat land. If it is used to grow medicine, it will definitely produce a lot. The desert has almost no traces of reclamation and is a rare pure land. In such an extreme environment, extremely precious resources will inevitably grow. "
In the past 20 years, Yili has built a mother river lock forest project with a length of 242 kilometers and a width of 3-5 kilometers in the northern edge of Kubuqi Desert and the narrow strip on the southern bank of the Yellow River, planted large desert xerophytes mainly composed of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch, and used them as the deep processing industry of medicinal plants.
At the licorice base, Ji Zhenyu, the brand manager of Yili Resources Group, pulled up a licorice and told reporters: "The surface of licorice looks ordinary, like weeds, and its medicinal parts are in the roots and rhizomes. Generally, it can be mined after 2 ~ 3 years of cultivation. Licorice here is planted by local farmers and herdsmen, and shares are acquired with the right to use desertified land. Our company mainly adopts the operation mechanism of "company plus farmers, enterprise plus base" to drive farmers and herdsmen to plant trees and licorice, which not only expands the scale of enterprise development, but also drives farmers and herdsmen in sand areas to become rich. "
In the process of developing Chinese medicine industry, Yili has successively acquired many pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical sales enterprises in Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Shanghai, Shaanxi and other places, and introduced world-leading production lines from abroad.
When the reporter came to Yili Energy's pharmaceutical branch, he smelled a familiar taste of licorice tablets as soon as he entered the factory. Yang Hui, deputy general manager of the company, joked to reporters: "At first, it was uncomfortable to smell this smell every day. Now it is uncomfortable not to smell licorice for a day."
Walking in the factory, Yang Hui told the reporter: "The entire pharmaceutical branch has a planned land area of more than 500 mu. What you are seeing now is the first phase of the project. The second phase also has a health care product workshop and a Chinese medicine extraction workshop. It is planned to start construction this year. " Walking into the hall outside the workshop, there is a distribution map of the whole pharmaceutical factory and an exhibition hall of licorice series drugs.
Yang Hui introduced with a bag of sliced licorice: "Top-grade sliced licorice like this can be sold for more than 1kg 100 yuan abroad, mainly to China, Hongkong, Macau, Taiwan Province, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and other countries. In domestic pharmacies, it is basically very fine diced grass (licorice is divided into A, B, C and D grades, and diced grass is the lowest). "
Yang Hui took the reporter to the medicinal materials exhibition hall and introduced to the reporter: "Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch was called' the king of all medicines' in ancient times. Now we mainly produce a series of traditional Chinese medicine products based on licorice, such as licorice, compound licorice tablets, licorice mixture, compound fried licorice granules, licorice, licorice zinc tablets and so on. "