Jiuan township in Huaxi district develops green economy

Farmhands from Jiuan township get busy picking tea. [Photo/huaxi.gov.cn]

The Jiuan township, administered by Huaxi district in Guiyang – capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province – continues to flourish from a tea industry that has been developed since 2006, relying on ecology and its ancient resources of tea trees.

The residents' per capita income reached 16,506 yuan ($2,597) this year, 2.3 times that of 2000. 

"We once dug coal for a living and the air was dirty in the past. Now the ecology and environment has improved and our income has increased because of the tea industry," said Xiang Chaofu, an agricultural cooperative director in the Jiuan village of Jiuan township.

Jiuan's successful transformation to a green economy and sustainable development has become a model for industrial transformation in Huaxi district, which benefited from the implementation of various measures.

Jiuan seized the opportunity of Huaxi district, which is to build a national cultural tourism innovation zone, to promote industrial transformation combining ecological treatment, poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. 

The township continued to improve its local business environment and encouraged locals to find jobs in the tea industry. It did so by issuing tea planting subsidies and offering vocational skills training, among a raft of measures. 

In addition, the local government shared the ancient tea trees with residents and managed garbage, sewage and other ecological environmental problems, which encouraged more to get involved in the development of the tea industry. 

Jiuan township has now established more than 1,466 hectares of high-quality tea gardens, with over 50 percent of local employment directly or indirectly engaged in the tea industry. 

Apart from the tea sector, the township has developed over 76 ha of vegetable fields, 150 ha of fruit orchards and 400 ha of cherry blossom fields. Hericium erinaceus, oyster mushrooms, strawberries, beekeeping and other green industries have been flourishing in the township. 

Plans are for the township to continue to develop controlled-environment agriculture and integrate the development of agriculture, culture and tourism to further enhance its local ecology and economy.