Qidong's four green crops – green broad beans, green corn, green edamame, green peas – obtain certification of geographical indication. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

According to the Qidong municipal market supervision administration, the China National Intellectual Property Administration recently issued an announcement on trademark registration confirming that Qidong's four green crops – green broad beans, green corn, green edamame and green peas – were granted certification of geographical indication, which will lead to improvement in both regional branding and product quality.

The four green crops are Qidong's traditional cash crops, and have a long planting history. They have been the dominant categories among the agricultural products in Qidong since the 1960s. They not only sell well in the Yangtze River Delta region, but also enjoy a high reputation in the international market.

In September, Qidong was recognized as a provincial characteristic agricultural products premium area for the four green crops.

Geographical indications are used to indicate a product that originates from a certain area, and the specific quality, reputation or other characteristics of the product are mainly determined by the natural or human factors of the area.

Registration and protection of geographical indication trademarks is of great importance to increasing the added value of agricultural products, the income of farmers and optimization of agricultural structure.

At present, the planting area of the four green crops in Qidong totals 30,300 hectares and the total output reaches 397,900 tons. With an average value per ton of over 6,000 yuan ($893), the total output value exceeds 2.3 billion yuan.

Qidong has had six geographical indication trademarks to date – Qidong little yellow croakers, Qidong pomfret, Qidong green broad beans, Qidong green corn, Qidong green edamame, and Qidong green peas. Together they mark the city developing characteristic agriculture and signal increasing farmers' income and promotion of rural revitalization.