Society

Micro blog rescues desperate melon farmer

By Zhang Jiawei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-06-07 11:39

In what appears to be totally out of desperation from sluggish sales, Chinese watermelon farmer Fu Youlian posted his first ever micro blog from China's twitter-like micro blogging service site weibo.com.

His first micro blog was dated May 23 at 11:39 am, when reports of bursting watermelons caused by the use of growth chemicals in Jiangsu province haunted Chinese melon farmers who had hoped to grab good profits after big harvests.

A photo, posted on melon grower Fu Youlian's micro blog on May 24, shows Fu's neighbors picking watermelons from their farmland. [Photo/weibo.com]

Though it is not yet certain whether the growth chemicals can harm humans, people tend to assume the worst and stop consuming the fruit, hence sales were less than expected.

"The reports of bursting watermelons have brought a miserable life for us. We have tens of thousands of jin (one jin equals half a kilogram) of watermelons waiting to get rotten in the farmlands," the 24-year-old Fu, from Yanbian county in Panzhihua of Southwest China's Sichuan province, said in his first micro blog.

"We sold the watermelons at 1.2 yuan per jin last year, and this year we will sell them even for 30 to 40 cents per jin."

He added in his second post that their melons were grown naturally in the mountainous areas and swore that the melons contain no growth chemicals.

The cnr.cn said Fu's first micro blog had been forwarded more than 26,000 times and had received about 5,000 comments eight hours after being posted.

In addition, people were motivated to help Fu. Melon dealers contacted him to buy the fruit and netizens also organized group purchases.

Seven hours after his first micro blog, Fu said in a new post that his melons were almost sold out, but his neighbors were also in need of help.

Sina.com.cn, which owns weibo.com, said by May 27 the county's 100,000 tons of watermelons were almost all sold out.

Beijing Morning Post reported Tuesday that Fu has left his hometown to work in other cities after finishing the melon-selling work.

Fu's first micro blog was forwarded 68,952 times and received 13,792 comments as of 10:30 on Tuesday.