Medicinal plants are offering impoverished villages a green way to prosperity

Pristine natural conditions and an ideal altitude have turned a formerly isolated county into a major source of herbs. But the beginnings were far from promising.

Luquan Yi and Miao autonomous county was once so deprived that Qian Shiquan had to leave home to work as a concrete mixing laborer and then a construction contractor in 2000 because there was no way to do to keep his family above water.

In fact, as per the 2,000 figures, more than 80 percent of Ganhaizi village in Luquan county, Yunnan province, lived under the national poverty line, which was set at 1,200 yuan ($173) per year, a figure that was adjusted to 3,000 yuan in 2016.

Yunnan province's Luquan Yi and Miao autonomous county offers ideal conditions for herbal plantation. Yuan Qingpan / For China Daily

The village did not have proper road access and electricity until 2004.

However, Qian was forced to quit his job and return home in 2006, because of his two young daughters.

Thanks to work experience, Qian was then chosen to be on the village committee.

Initially, he spent most of his time dealing with village disputes.

As for economic opportunity, titanium ore exploration was the rage back then, says Qian.

But that did not last for long. The local government soon shut the mining business to protect the local environment and the water supplies.

So, the locals were left with no option but to try and make a living from the land.

But, traditional farming was not enough to sustain them.

"For one thing, it was difficult to transport the farm produce out of the village, and, besides, a ton of potatoes only brought in a little more than 1,000 yuan," says Qian.

Determined to help his family and fellow villagers, Qian then sought out more economically viable crops to cultivate.

As a result, they visited several places to study different agricultural practices..

After lots of trial and error, they finally settled on caowu (radix aconiti agrestis), since the village's high altitude and cold weather provided ideal conditions to grow the herb, which is a key ingredient for Yunnan Baiyao, a leading producer of traditional Chinese medicine.

"We learnt that caowu can grow well if the area's altitude is 2,000 meters above sea level, and our altitude is more than 2,400 meters," says Qian.

So, they introduced caowu to the village and began to grow it in 2009.

But things got off to a rough start, due to a lack of technology and experience.

"A businessman told us to sow the seeds at the start of spring and cover seeds with plant ash," says Qian.

However, strong spring winds dried the land and the alkaline plant ash burned the seeds.

Things only picked up in 2012 when a proper road to the village was built.

Then, the local government sent in agricultural experts to teach the villagers about proper growing methods.

Qian then set up a rural cooperative in October 2014 to promote mass plantation of the herb.

A total of 14 households joined the venture at the start of 2015.

The local government granted the cooperative 250,000 yuan to buy seeds.

Success

The first year was a success. All the 14 households saw their annual incomes cross 50,000 yuan, and four of them earned more than 100,000 yuan each.

"Now, with subsidies from the government, locals need to spend only a small amount for planting," says Qian.

One mu (666.7 square meters) of land, yields roughly 600 kg of caowu.

And gross income from each mu can touch 15,000 yuan, while costs are 3,000 yuan, says Qian.

Qian now earns roughly 100,000 yuan a year from the herb.

Given the lucrative results, more than 90 percent of the villagers have now jumped in to grow the herb, and the plantation area has almost doubled, from 230 mu to more than 400 mu.

Tian Hongyin, 43, is using a roughly 4 mu plot of land to grow caowu, ever since he joined Qian's cooperative.

He plans to make use of his entire 6 mu land holding to grow the herb.

Back in the old days, Tian could earn around 4,000 yuan a year from growing potatoes, corn and beans.

And a large part of his land was used for growing fodder for his cattle and sheep.

"I could not afford to pay for my two children's school fees," says Tian.

But, his income jumped to 60,000-70,000 yuan in 2015. And, his two-storey house will be ready soon.

Another option

Meanwhile, in a related development, Zhang Zhaoyun, a former officer with the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences who now owns a company dealing in pesticides, has found that the land can also be used to grow chonglou (rhizoma paridis).

The herb is another key ingredient used by Yunnan Baiyao.

"I had heard people saying that it is very difficult to grow the herb, so I thought I would give it a shot."

He achieved success when he discovered that wrong seed selection was the cause of the problem.

"Some kinds of chonglou love warm weather and lower altitudes like 1,300 meters, while others favor chilly weather and altitudes of more than 2,000 meters above sea level," says Zhang.

"So, if you plant the wrong seeds in the wrong place, of course they will not survive."

Maoshan town is 1,800 meters above sea level, which makes it perfect for a wide range of varieties.

Before Zhang set up his business, the locals earned only a few hundred yuan annually from their land

Zhang first rented 349 mu of land in Maoshan to grow the herb, paying 1,350 yuan for each mu.

And locals were hired, mostly for weeding.

"If they work 100 days a year, they can earn 7,000 yuan," says Zhang.

Now, 1 mu of land can earn you more than 300,000 yuan, he says.

Zhang recently developed another 400 mu land to grow the herb, in an area that is 1.5 km away from the earlier plot.

Separately, the rosy prospects for chonglou have also spurred a growing number of villagers to work with Zhang, and he has agreed to offer seedlings and technical management to locals in exchange for roughly 30 percent of their output.

In a related development, Zhang has reached an agreement with Yunnan Baiyao, and all the herbs from the village will be procured by it.

"They (the villagers) do not have to worry about their produce being bought."

Further down the road, Zhang has plans to make inroads downstream by developing health products containing chonglou.

He hopes his business will be worth 400 million yuan by 2019.

Stable source

From Yunnan Baiyao's point of view, in order to develop a stable source of ingredients for its traditional Chinese medicine products, it is developing ties with counties and villages nearby, and Luquan is one of them.

According to Lu Hongdong, director with the company, it is in the process of determining which herbs it wants the villagers to grow, the size of cultivation area and the standards it wants maintained.

Speaking about the relationship between Yunnan Baiyao and the villagers, Lv Huaiyu, the deputy head of Luquan county, says: "We pay close attention to Yunnan Baiyao's needs."

Then, rural cooperatives manage the plantations and peasants do the field work.

Cooperatives then make purchases after the medicinal plants are harvested and sell them to Yunnan Baiyao.

Luquan's herbal plantations are growing steadily and more peasants are benefiting from the change.

yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn