Jinjiang White Konjac

Jinjiang White Konjac

　　Jinjiang White Konjac is a specialty of Yongshan County, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province. Records of konjac cultivation in Yongshan date back to the Ming Dynasty. White konjac is the main cultivated variety in the county, known for its superior quality. The processed konjac has white color, firm texture, robust corners, plump pulp, and tight tissue structure, meeting national top-grade standards.

　　White konjac is the main cultivated variety in Yongshan County. The county’s unique subtropical typical mountainous climate is highly suitable for the growth of white konjac. The land area suitable for white konjac cultivation in the county totals 150,000 mu, of which over 50,000 mu are most suitable. The Jinjiang White Konjac produced in our county is of excellent quality. The processed konjac features white color, firm texture, robust corners, plump pulp, and tight tissue structure, meeting national top-grade standards. The glucomannan content in the dry stems reaches as high as 74.04%, exceeding the Light Industry Ministry’s top-grade standard of ≧68% and surpassing international levels by nearly 10 percentage points. The powder yield of mechanically dried konjac strips is over 75%, and the viscosity of the refined powder reaches above 28,000 centipoise, ranking first in China. It is hailed as the “Konjac Queen.” It has won numerous honors, including a single-item merit award at the 1988 National “Spark Program” Achievements Exhibition and Trade Fair, a silver medal at the 1991 National Science and Technology Expo, and the provincial “Spark Program” first prize in 1992 for konjac cultivation and refined powder processing. In 2000, it received Japan’s JONE organic green product certification. In 2001, it joined Mongolia’s “International Boutique Wholesale Center” distribution system and was awarded the honorary certificate of “Quality Supervision Qualified Product” by the National Bureau of Technical Supervision. Its uses are extremely diverse. Medical research has shown that it offers various benefits such as detoxification, blood vessel cleansing, blood pressure reduction, weight loss, appetite stimulation, and anti-tumor activity. It is a natural health food and is also widely used in cosmetics, petroleum, chemical, and construction materials industries, indicating broad market prospects.

　　Records of konjac cultivation in Yongshan County date back to the Ming Dynasty, when it was mainly grown around houses and at field edges without forming large-scale production and with extensive farming methods. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, cultivation remained at a primitive level of “keeping the big and leaving the small” and “letting it grow or die naturally,” with planting areas of just over 8,000 mu. Starting from the late 1980s, the county government began gradually emphasizing the development of the konjac industry. In 1999, a Konjac Production Development Leading Group and Office were established, and a “Tenth Five-Year Plan” and development goals for the white konjac industry were formulated. Efforts were actively made to include the project in the key agricultural industrialization support programs of the province and city. In 2000, support was obtained from the Science and Education Division of the Provincial Department of Agriculture to jointly conduct a high-yield white konjac cultivation collaborative demonstration project in the county, along with experiments on sexual seed propagation of white konjac. Seizing this favorable opportunity, the county set a goal to expand cultivation to 35,000 mu by 2005 and to 50,000 mu by 2015, aiming to build the county into the “Kingdom of White Konjac in China.” Currently, the county’s white konjac planting area has reached 30,843 mu, with a total output of 30,843 tons (including 12,066 tons of commercial konjac). Planting is distributed across 13 towns and townships, 88 administrative villages (offices), and 1,482 villager groups along the 168-kilometer Jinsha River, making it the largest pillar agricultural industry in the county.