LiuLin, an ancient county in ShanXi province, has successfully held the Second Red Date Cultural Festival. it draws hundreds of people from all over the country.

The autumn equinox has brought the grain and multiplied it. In the season full of fruity fragrance, red dates are hanging on the branches everywhere in the nearly-one-hundred-mile date forest belt along the Yellow River, which shows a scene of great harvest. The history of planting red date trees in LiuLin County has more than 1300 years. "Mu date", the main variety of LiuLin red dates, is one of the top ten Chinese dates, with the good reputation of "Chinese Mu date has a long history, and red dates from LiuLin are the best in the world" since ancient time.

In order to further improve the popularity, reputation and market share of Liulin dates, meanwhile attract more attention to Liulin, lead more people come to Liulin, know more about Liulin red dates, and support the development of Liulin red date industry. From September 29 to 30, the second Red Date Cultural Festival was held with great ceremony in Liulin County.

During the Red Date Cultural Festival, visitors could enjoy the sight of various red date gardens along the way and pick them in the picking areas to recall their memories of childhood. Many activities such as "Date King" selection, identification of Date trees, "Date Garden with Ink Fragrance" painting and calligraphy exhibition and pen club, " Liulin in Light and Shadow" photography exhibition and "Rap Liulin" art show and performance with local characteristics, etc. will make people feel overwhelmed and linger.

"Red Liulin" creative sign-in (to press a red fingerprint on the sign-in board in the shape of Liulin map, which implies the boom of Liulin), the giant national flag made of 350,000 red dates (on behalf of 350,000 people in the county) by date farmers spontaneously to celebrate National Day, and the large live event " the national fashion of agricultural products to help the development of Liulin" are all refreshing, and allow more people know about Liulin red dates.

For Liulin is located in the ravine region of Loess Plateau along the Yellow River, close to the mountain and river, with low altitude, high temperature, strong sunlight, dry climate and big temperature difference between day and night, which can promote fruit's sugar accumulation, and build a perfect environment for the growth of red dates. Thus, the quality of the date is excellent, with a big size, small pit, fresh color, thick and crispy flesh, high sugar content, sweet taste. Besides, the date is rather stable for storing, easy to transport, rich in Vitamin C, various essential proteins as well as other trace elements like calcium, iron, phosphorus, etc., especially in the content of Vitamin C which is as high as 500 mg per gram. Moreover, adenosine cyclic phosphate, the anti-cancer substance contained in the date, ranks the first among all the red dates varieties in China, with extremely high nutritional, healthcare and medicinal value.

In 1998, the Sanjiao Town of Liulin County, which radiated six counties in Qin and Jin provinces and had an annual trading volume of more than 80 million kilograms, was rated as "the First Town of Red Dates in China" by the Ministry of Agriculture. In 2008, it was also identified as "the National Agricultural Product Processing and Start-up Base" by the relevant departments. Then in 2009, Liulin red date was successfully registered and granted the right to use the national "Agricultural Product Geographical Indication" protection trademark, becoming another beautiful new name card of "Green Liulin".

Liulin now has a date forest of nearly 18,667 hectares, with an annual output of 30 million kilograms. There are some well-known date brand enterprises in possession of famous trademarks, such as Dazi, Liulang, Yideli, Lvliangshan, Shanjiao, etc. The annual processing and transforming amount are 120 million kilograms, and the annual output value of date industry and its associated industries is up to 500 million RMB.

In recent years, Liulin County has actively conformed to the tide of modern agriculture and ecological civilization construction, and promoted the development of date, an industry to enrich people, by putting it into the important position of rural revitalization and poverty alleviation. The battle for date revitalization has been launched in an overall way. For example, the date revitalization plan has been formulated and the company with the same name has been established. In addition, the cooperation between the local government and Shanxi Agricultural University has been carried out so as to build a science and technology demonstration park with high standards and promote the quality and efficiency of date industry. With the help of the "One Belt and One Road" national strategy, Liulin chambers of commerce have been established in Beijing, Shenzhen, Taiyuan and other cities to smooth the export channels of dates. Last year, the first red date cultural festival was successfully held in Liulin County, attracting more than 50,000 citizens and foreign businessmen to visit and shop, and achieving a total sales of 484,000 RMB. Friends from Beijing, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Inner Mongolia and other places have reached 16 trade agreements on red dates and featured agricultural products, with a total amount of 40.8 million RMB, making red date, dried red date, walnut wrapped in the date, black-pearl millet, pumpkin seed and other high-quality agricultural products in Liulin nation-wide.

At present, Liulin County has built 10 red date primary science and technology demonstration park, fostered and developed three provincial, 16 municipal leading enterprises on red date processing. The processed and manufactured products include the candied date, Gong date, Tan date, hollow date, jade date, crispy date, pearl date, etc. all of which are exported to more than 20 provinces and cities in the country as well as Southeast Asian countries, which has become the significant support for all the farmers' income in the county. (Jin Lvliu)