“Compared with the heavy farm work at home, I can easily earn more than 4,000 yuan per month now.” On July 21, at a workshop of edible fungus industrial park in Jianbei village of Dongming town, Lushi county, Mr. Chen, from a poverty-stricken household, was talking about his recent changes joyfully.
Click on the video above to know more aboutXixia county’s shiitake mushrooms. [Video provided to dahe.cn]
Mr. Chen are living in the Dongtaohua village of Shuanghuaishu town, Lushi county with his family. The inconvenient traffic and poverty conditions made his family identified as poverty-stricken household in 2016.
In the past, Mr. Chen made a living by making thousands of mushroom bags and cultivating a few mu (0.067 hectare) of farm. While at the end of 2017, his family were relocated to a new settlement with improved living conditions and educational resources.
Many other villagers, like Chen, are working in the industrial park. [Photo provided to dahe.cn]
“I have no other skills than farming and making mushroom bags for a living. When we moved to the new settlement, my kid was very little and my wife was in poor health. At that time, I was very anxious about the living cost for my family.”
Chen said, he signed up a local shiitake mushroom factory immediately on hearing that poor families are preferred and the factory is close to his home. Now, he can earn more than 4,000 yuan per month. Apart from living costs, he can even have some savings. “Our life will be better and better.”
Many other villagers, like Chen, are also working in the industrial park.
Mushroom sticks in the industrial park. [Photo provided to dahe.cn]
Approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, Henan Funiushan Shiitake Mushroom Industrial Cluster is one of the 50 advantageous and featured industrial clusters in China this year. Lushi county, as a key county for the construction of the shiitake mushroom industrial cluster, has invested 530 million yuan to speed up the poverty alleviation.
In the campaign against poverty, Lushi county attracted a local group and invested 280 million yuan to build a shiitake mushroom industrial park with the largest scale and highest automation level in China. The temperature and humidity control system made the shiitake mushrooms available all year round with over 80 percent of the yield rate, and the mushrooms are classified from the traditional 3 grades into 16. At present, the mushroom production technologies have been regulated to realize product industrialization and standardization.
Xixia county’s shiitake mushrooms. [Photo provided to dahe.cn]
“We used to wait and sell dried mushrooms to the vendors. But now, fresh mushrooms are sold directly by cold-chain logistics trucks, and one jin (1 jin [China] = half a kilogram) of freshly picked white mushrooms can fetch a price of 9.50 yuan.” A mushroom grower from Tongmu village of Xujiawan town told the reporter.
Fresh mushrooms selling lies in its large-scale production, industrial operation and brand effect. Lushi county has nearly 20 export enterprises specialized in shiitake mushrooms or related products with an annual export value of over 1 billion yuan. At the same time, the county has standardized shiitake mushroom quality and registered unified brand for online selling. The annual sales of shiitake mushroom exceed 200 million yuan through e-commerce. (Chinese source: dahe.cn)
