Pingsha Town in Zhuhai recently celebrated its first pineapple harvest of the year. Buyers from across the country—shopping enthusiasts from Hong Kong and Macao included—flocked to the town, with the evident desire for freshly picked fruit and the inevitable demand that comes with such a term of endearment as "freshly picked."                                  

What makes Pingsha’s pineapples so special? The answer lies in an unusual advantage: saline-alkali soil. While such soil is usually thought to be bad for farming, Pingsha turned this challenge into an opportunity. About ten years ago, the town launched land improvement projects to cut water salinity, enrich the soil with organic fertilizers, and rehabilitate once-barren land. Farmers then brought in salt-tolerant crops, like pineapples and wax apples.                                                                 

The plantation today is a sea of lush green, with clusters of golden, sun-ripened pineapples. Annual pineapple production is about 200,000 kilograms. Not only has the local economy been boosted, but Pingsha is no longer considered unfarmable. It now grows one of the best pineapples in the world.