Farmer: No regrets over giveaway

ZHENGZHOU - When it comes to marketing, few things are better at attracting customers than freebies.

Han Honggang will be hoping that theory is true after he decided to give away an entire field of bai luobo, or white radish.

The 37-year-old farmer says the idea came to him after he heard a cold snap was on its way.

"Weather forecasters had predicted snow, and the radishes had to be pulled up before that or they would spoil," Han said when China Daily caught up with him on Saturday. "I thought it'd be a pity for them to rot in a field."

Instead, on Nov 25, he contacted local media and advertised his vegetables for free to anyone willing to pluck them from the ground.

Business had been poor, he said, and wholesalers were offering just 0.12 yuan (2 US cents) per kilogram.

"I knew that giving away the crop would probably cost me at least 70,000 yuan, but hiring workers to pick them and trucks to ship them would have cost more," said Han, who rents a four-hectare field beside the Yellow River, just outside Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan province.