The 2nd Garlic Culture Festival and Garlic King Competition of Daming County Successfully Held

To warmly celebrate the Party Founding Day and actively welcome the Tourism Development Conference, recently, Daming County successfully held the 2024 2nd Garlic Culture Festival and the 5th "Hetaiji Cup" Garlic King Competition with the theme of "Celebrating July 1st, Welcoming the Tourism Development Conference" and closely centering on the core purpose of "Carrying forward Daming's garlic culture and showcasing the charm of the garlic industry". The event fully demonstrated the development achievements of the local garlic industry and gathered synergy for industrial development.

At 7 o'clock in the morning, with bright sunshine and the fragrance of garlic filling the air, the 5th "Hetaiji Cup" Garlic King Competition officially kicked off at the Garlic Trading Market in Huangjindi Town. County leaders including Jiang Tao, Yang Bo, Peng Changjiang and Ye Yingsheng attended the event. Party committee secretaries and town mayors from five towns including Huangjindi Town, Wandi Town and Ying Town gathered at the scene, participating in this grand event of the garlic industry together with local garlic farmers, enterprise representatives and industry experts. The scene was crowded with people and the atmosphere was warm, filled with the joy of harvest and the spirit of forging ahead everywhere.

In his welcome speech, the Party committee secretary of Huangjindi Town stated that holding the Garlic Culture Festival is not only a concentrated display of the development achievements of Daming's garlic industry, but also an inheritance and promotion of garlic culture, as well as an important measure to promote the improvement of garlic quality and the transformation and upgrading of the industry. It will further gather forces from all parties to help the high-quality development of the garlic industry. In his speech, county leader Yang Bo emphasized that as a pillar agricultural industry of Daming County, the garlic industry bears the important mission of increasing garlic farmers' income and revitalizing rural areas. The whole county should continue to increase policy, technical and financial support to promote the garlic industry towards higher quality, better efficiency and more sustainable development.

Subsequently, representatives including Liu Bing and Xi Gangqiang delivered speeches successively. Combining their own career experience and development plans, they expressed their firm determination to deepen their roots in the garlic industry and work together to promote development, promising to base themselves on their positions and contribute to improving the quality and efficiency of Daming's garlic industry and expanding its influence. At the event site, after strict screening by professional judges, the Garlic King Competition selected first, second and third prizes as well as a special Garlic King Award. County leader Jiang Tao and Dean Wang Liping from Hebei University of Engineering awarded prizes to the winning garlic farmers and representatives respectively. Applause and cheers resounded continuously, fully demonstrating the recognition and encouragement for the hard work of garlic farmers.

A wonderful cultural performance was staged simultaneously. With full enthusiasm and exquisite performances, the actors presented an audio-visual feast for the audience on site. The melodious singing, lively dances and down-to-earth folk performances won thunderous applause from the guests and masses on site, adding a strong cultural atmosphere to the grand event.

During the grand event, the 2nd Garlic Seed Forum was held as scheduled, becoming an important intellectual support for promoting industrial development. Dean Wang Liping from Hebei University of Engineering was present on site, and combined with years of research results, she detailedly interpreted the progress of garlic breeding technology, the direction of variety improvement and the future development trend of the garlic industry for the participants, providing guidance for industrial development with professional knowledge. Experts from Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences also shared cutting-edge technologies, development directions and industry-university-research cooperation models for garlic seed cultivation, providing new ideas and paths for the high-quality development of Daming's garlic industry. The participants listened carefully and communicated in depth, all expressing that the forum was full of practical content and benefited them a lot, further clarifying the development direction of the garlic industry and injecting strong impetus into the upcoming Tourism Development Conference.

In this event, the Digital Agriculture Service Center played an important role and became a "new engine" for industrial upgrading. Staff on site shared the development achievements of "Cloud-based Jindi Working Together", and explained in detail the application scenarios of digital technology in garlic planting, warehousing, sales and other links, allowing participants to intuitively feel the strong potential and remarkable effects of digital empowerment of modern agriculture. At the end of the event, the Digital Agriculture Service Center held the awarding ceremony of "Digital Joint Development" for Huangjindi Town. This measure marks another solid step for Daming County on the road of digital agriculture development, and also means that the garlic industry will achieve precise planting and efficient management with the help of digital technology, making garlic farmers' "economic accounts" clearer and more accurate, and allowing the hope of garlic farmers developing together and getting rich together to take root and bear fruit.

The successful holding of this Garlic Culture Festival and Garlic King Competition not only fully displayed the prosperous scene and development achievements of Daming County's garlic industry, built a high-quality platform for industry-university-research exchange and cooperation, but also injected new vitality and momentum into the high-quality development of the garlic industry. At the same time, the event further enhanced the visibility and market influence of Daming garlic, enriched the local cultural connotation, injected new vitality into the economic and social development of Daming County, vividly interpreted the theme of the grand event "Celebrating July 1st, Welcoming the Tourism Development Conference, Digitally 'Calculating' Economic Accounts Well, and Jointly 'Planting' New Hopes", and laid a solid foundation for the effective implementation of the rural revitalization strategy in Daming.