China's First Provincial-level Wolfberry Association EstablishedChina's first provincial- level association responsible for developing the Chinese wolfberry industry was launched recently in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, northwest China.Vice-chairman of the regional government Chen Jinyu said that the move is aimed at making full use of the advantages of rich wolfberry and speeding up the industrialization of the wolfberry production. The association is a professional social institution formed by enterprises and institutions engaged in the production, processing and marketing of wolfberry, and scholars, experts and professionals in this field. As the native home of wolfberry, Ningxia's planted area of wolfberry has surpassed 13,300 hectares and its annual output and exports of the wolfberry have accounted for 40 percent and more than 50 percent of the national total, respectively. Ningxia has a history of more than 500 years in planting wolfberry, and the wolfberry produced there is the only wolfberry variety that has been included in the pharmacopoeia of New China. Experts found that the Ningxia wolfberry has the functions of energizing and adjusting the immune system, protecting the liver and fighting against aging. The region now produces 13 million kilograms of wolfberry annually, ranking the first in the country, and has developed a dozen wolfberry products such as wolfberry liquor, wolfberry seed oil and wolfberry juice. Ningxia has been named China's only medicinal wolfberry production base. |
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