The largest and most up-to-date organic fertilizer plant ever built in China began operations recently in the port city of Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The plant was built by Han Wei, a private owner of China's largest chicken farm, at a cost of 20 million yuan.

Equipped with technology provided by the Shenyang Applied Ecology Research Institute (SAERI) under the Academy of Chinese Sciences, the plant is expected to turn out 100,000 tons of fertilizer this year, and has already received an order for 20,000 tons from Japan.

Experiments in Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces show that this fertilizer can raise the output of fruit, vegetables, and flowers by 8 to 18 percent, said Wang Shujin, an institute researcher.

Han raises 2 million chickens producing 80 tons of fresh eggs a day, but the 200 tons of manure excreted by chickens everyday is a headache, so Han collaborated with SAERI to build the fertilizer plant.