At the crack of dawn, Chen Xiaochong is up and about to head for his woodlot in Chengjiang County in Yuxi City at the central part of Yunnan Province. Every morning at this time of year, Chen ventures deep into the forests at first light, looking for wild edible mushrooms, one of the hidden treasures of the province in southwest China.

Two years ago, Chen contracted the management right of a 500-mu (33.33-hectare) forest lot in Yuxi. The area is rich in wild mushrooms that can only be harvested from May to October each year. Once picked, the fresh mushrooms are immediately sent to Kunming, the provincial capital, 95 km from Yuxi, to be sold and shipped.

In the middle of July, the Mushuihua Wild Mushroom Trading Center in Kunming comes alive in the early hours of the morning. After buying wild mushrooms from farmers like Chen, small traders then sell batches of tens or even hundreds of kilograms to wholesalers. In front of the trading center, couriers are busy packaging mushrooms, which will be shipped to major cities in China and even abroad within 48 hours.

To ensure that wild mushrooms stay fresh, it is critical to ship them as quickly as possible. To achieve this, high-speed trains have proven to be the best mode of transport in recent years.

"The mushroom-picking period coincides with the rainy season. At that time of the year, aircraft often cannot take off in time due to storms. On the other hand, the high-speed train is not only a reliable means of transportation, but also offers constant-temperature shipping conditions to guarantee product quality," Mao Zhiyuan, Deputy Director of the Kunming Branch of China Railway Express (CRE) at Kunming South Station, told ChinAfrica. As part of China State Railway Group, this logistics company was established in 1997 and offers high-speed train delivery services nationwide.

A new solution

At the end of 2016, Yunnan entered the era of high-speed railway transportation with the introduction of the Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway, which passes through Qujing City in east Yunnan. Since then, both passenger and fresh produce transportation have seen a marked improvement in convenience and efficiency. At the same time, there has been a noticeable decrease in the number of passenger buses operating between Qujing and Kunming, which was previously used for also transporting mushrooms.

According to Mao, wild mushroom farmers first began sending their produce to market via high-speed trains in 2017.

After the launch of the high-speed railway, ZTO Express in Yunnan found that within a radius of less than 800 km, high-speed rail transportation was more advantageous than air transportation. In addition, the high-speed trains are more reliable and always run according to schedule. This guarantee of speed and safety fully meets ZTO's transport needs. The company then took the initiative to sign a cooperation agreement with CRE to explore the market for high-end fresh products, well before other logistics companies in Yunnan.

Starting from May 31, 2017, ZTO launched its operation on six high-speed rail lines linking Yunnan to six provinces in south China. Two months later, ZTO opened services on another two high-speed rail lines between Kunming on one side, and Beijing and Shanghai on the other. In August 2017, China's State Council published a document to promote parcel shipping services by high-speed trains, according to which "high-speed rail transport logistics must be explored to support the joint development of high-speed rail and express delivery."

A mushroom market in Yunnan (PU FAN)

In-depth cooperation

The cooperation between the railways and express companies got new impetus over the following two years. With abundant resources and growing market demand, more and more logistics companies decided to use high-speed trains to transport wild mushrooms.

In July 2017, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com and the Yunnan Provincial Department of Commerce signed a strategic cooperation agreement on e-commerce to sell Yunnan's specialized products throughout the country. According to Hu Wei, Managing Director at Jingdong Logistics Southwest Co., in order to implement this agreement, in July 2018, JD.com and CRE launched a cooperation project to transport more fresh produce by high-speed trains. As a result of this initiative, on July 18, 2018, Yunnan's first batch of matsutake mushrooms arrived at Shanghai's Hongqiao Station, after spending only 11 hours in transit. The mushrooms were first transported from their harvest areas by refrigerated trucks to Kunming, where they were loaded onto the high-speed trains heading to Shanghai.

"The produce can be transported from its region of origin to the consumer's dining table within 48 hours, and most of the time within 30 hours. Logistical requirements for transporting matsutake are very high. If we can meet them, it will be easy to transport other produce," said Lu Miao, head of Jingdong Logistics in Yunnan. According to him, the project will gradually be extended to other kinds of fresh produce such as flowers and fruits.

And that's not all: Matsutake mushrooms can now be shipped directly from their place of origin to Kunming by high-speed train.

On August 18 of this year, the first high-speed matsutake express, carrying 367 kg of the mushrooms from Lijiang City in northwest Yunnan, arrived at Kunming South Station. The mushrooms were then transported to Kunming airport to be exported via international flights.

This is the "TGV + airplanes" mode put forward by China Railway Kunming Group and CRE-SF Holding (a private Chinese logistics company) in order to optimize the matsutake supply chain. According to Mao, compared to refrigerated trucks, the new solution can reduce transportation time to Kunming South Station from 6-7 hours to only 3 hours.

On January 5, 2019, the Kunming-Lijiang high-speed train was officially put into service. Yunnan accounts for 40 percent of China's total matsutake production. The Shangri-La matsutake mushroom, found in Lijiang, accounts for more than 65 percent of Yunnan's matsutake exports. Moreover, it is the only major export produce of the Deqen Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and the main source of income for local farmers who wish to lift themselves out of poverty.

"In addition to Shangri-La matsutake mushrooms, the high-speed train also carries other fresh produce, such as grapes and blueberries. Some areas in the province have implemented projects to reduce poverty, for example, by reducing the cost of shipping goods by high-speed trains," said Mao, adding, "As high-speed train services keep developing in our province, I think that more high-quality fresh products will make their way faster to the dining tables of consumers both at home and abroad."

(Comments to glj@chinafrica.cn)