Green Development Sows Seeds of Prosperity

Farm workers harvest organic vegetables in a greenhouse in Henan province last month. Niu Shupei / For China Daily

Residents of isolated communities in the Dabie Mountain range are seeing incomes rise as agribusiness flourishes. Hou Liqiang reports from Xinxian, Henan

For more than a decade, Cen Xinshun worked as a martial arts teacher in private schools outside of his isolated home village.

When he left in 1995, he was not alone; for decades, residents of Yangtudun in Xinxian county, Henan province, had made efforts to leave the mountain-encompassed village in search of better opportunities in the outside world.

However, in 2013, Cen bucked the trend by returning to the village, which was populated mainly by the elderly and left-behind children and had become increasingly isolated as a result of a lack of sealed roads. He started a business completely unrelated to his previous work - running a farm that grows and supplies organic agricultural produce.

The 39-year-old is just one of thousands of people who have devoted themselves to exploring the development potential of green agriculture in the rural areas of the Dabie Mountain range, a poverty-stricken region with high forest coverage and an unspoiled environment.

He returned home after working in Zhengzhou and Xinyang, also in Henan, and opened a restaurant in urban Xinxian in 2005. While running the business, he realized that demand for organic food in the restaurant trade was high, so in 2013, he decided to start a small farm to supply quality foodstuffs to customers.

He didn't expect his venture to be so successful that it would generate annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) and the farm would expand to cover 330 hectares.

In addition to traditional local crops such as rice, Cen grows more than 60 types of vegetables and raises cows and chickens. The farm also has facilities to process its produce.

"We employ a circular agricultural model (feeding the cows and chickens with straw and crops harvested from the farm and then using their droppings as manure) and never use chemicals," he said.

Though the produce has not been officially certified as organic, Cen said it has gained widespread recognition. For example, the farm's rice sells for 24 yuan per kilogram, which is more than double that of many other strains in the domestic market.

"We don't have to look for customers. Instead, they come to us," Cen said.

While the high demand provides impetus for the development of his business, he said his success is also due to strong support from the local government, which provided about one-fifth of the farm's total investment of 50 million yuan in the form of low-interest loans.

Local beneficiaries

In 2015, as a growing number of tourists began visiting Xinxian, Cen opened a resort on the farm. Last year, the resort, which has more than 10 guest rooms, received about 150,000 tourists, and the number has surpassed 200,000 so far this year.

Many changes have occurred thanks to the continuing success of Cen's business. The farm has helped lift more than 500 families out of poverty, and many new houses have been built as a result of rising local incomes.

Zheng Chunxia is one of the beneficiaries. Before the farm was founded, she had no way of making money, so her family of four relied on funds provided by her husband, who was a migrant worker in a distant town. Now, Zheng is among the 150-plus locals who work full time for Cen's company.

"At the beginning, I worked on the farm. Now, I work as a cook at the resort. I can make 40,000 to 50,000 yuan a year while caring for my younger son, who is 17 and in senior high school," said the 48-year-old, whose older son is at university.

She said she used to have to walk along muddy mountain roads for about 30 minutes to catch a bus, but now all the roads are sealed thanks to Cen's company, and the bus stops right outside her home.

According to the county government, by mid-May, more than 17,000 Xinxian natives who once lived outside the county as migrant workers had returned and started business, with many of them involved in organic farming.