More fruits and vegetables on Tibetans' tables

LHASA, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Sunday is a weekly shopping day for Tashi's family. As for groceries, they have much more choices than before.

"When I was a child, dumplings and canned food were my dreamy feast," said 70-year-old Tashi while shopping in Porgor Street of Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Those days are gone.

Holding his grandson's hand and selecting edible oils in front of a supermarket shelf, Tashi said: "I have so many choices just to buy cooking oil, including olive oil, walnut oil, rapeseed oil, and so on."

In 1959, Tibet's total grain output was only about 180,000 tonnes, while the region's grain output in 2021 reached a new high of 1.07 million tonnes, topping 1 million tonnes for a seventh straight year.

In the Yaowangshan farm produce market, approximately 300 meters west of the Potala Palace square of Lhasa, Yudron, 68, bought some asparagus.

"In the past, when the New Year came in winter, we had to stock up on vegetables in advance, mainly radishes, cabbages, and potatoes," Yudron said. "Now I buy whatever I want."

In another supermarket, resident Nyima picked avocados in the fruit area to make a nutritious breakfast. "It was hard to buy any avocados in Lhasa six years ago, but now I buy as much as I like," he said.

"Thanks to Tibet's booming express delivery sector in recent years, we have more varied fruit choices such as durian, mangosteen, and loquat," Nyima said.

Express delivery enterprises in Tibet handled 14.85 million parcels during 2021, up 30.4 percent year on year, data from the local postal administration showed.

Apart from agricultural products from other parts of China, Tibet has also built plateau vegetable and fruit industry bases around its cities. Its self-sufficiency rate of vegetables in Summer and Autumn has reached 85 percent.