ANOTHER 20 pork stalls selling healthy meat from Henan Province will be set up in local wet markets this month, thanks to Jia Zuocheng, a Henan farmer.
It was Jia who emailed Mayor Han Zheng in April promoting his area's pork.
Consequently three stalls in the city's Pudong New Area are selling healthy pork at a price usually two yuan (26 US cents) per kilogram below the market price.
Jia, 50, said he came up with the idea to write to Mayor Han when he could not find a good market for the pork produced in his hometown of Jiyuan City.
"Sometimes I still think it's incredible seeing the stalls being established one by one in Shanghai. The e-mail to the Mayor was just like a key to success," he said.
Jia remembers telling the Mayor that about 300,000 healthy fully grown pigs were produced for slaughter every year in Jiyuan. However the pork did not sell well in Shanghai because there were too many intermediaries.
Five days after writing, Jia received a cell phone call from a Shanghai government staff member, saying his mail had caught Mayor Han's eye and department officials were going to invite him to Shanghai for further discussions.
Together with officials of the Jiyuan Animal Husbandry Bureau, Jia arrived in the city and soon the cooperation project was agreed. On July 24 the first two "Jiyuan Healthy Pork Direct Selling Stalls" were opened.
