For the people of Jingzhou, Fuling is more than a medicinal herb and food. It is a local treasure which brings fortune to them and help increase their income.

People dig for Fuling at a Fuling plantation in Jingzhou.

Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County of Hunan Province is known as a "land of Fuling." The county has 30,000 mu (2,001 hectares) of Fuling planting areas, with 15 large-sized enterprises, 33 high-tech enterprises, 12 SMEs that specialize in niche sectors, 261 processing cooperatives and family farms, and 3,564 private processing workshops engaged in related business. During the January-September period of this year, the output value of the entire industrial chain reached 9.4 billion CNY.

 
Jingzhou's Fuling products have been exported to dozens of countries and regions around the world. The annual transaction volume of fresh Fuling amounted to 100,000 tonnes while that of dried Fuling was 62,000 tonnes, accounting for more than 70% of the national total.

A production line of pachymaran oral liquid in Jingzhou.

In recent years, Jingzhou has mapped out a construction goal of "one industrial park, one platform, two bases, three zones, and five centers." It aims to build "nine systems" related to Fuling, covering industrial park, production and marketing, science popularization, exhibition, fitness and health, tourism, and festival, advancing the integrated development of Fuling-related primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. So far, a complete industrial chain has taken shape, extending from strain selection and breeding, cultivation, and primary processing, to deep processing, technology promotion, and health service.

A production line of Fuling food processing in Jingzhou.

Featuring extensive and rapidly growing industrial chain, Jingzhou Fuling has become a pillar industry for the county's economy. It has injected robust momentum into the local economic and social development as well as all-round rural revitalization. More than 70,000 local people got employed and had their income increased thanks to the Fuling industry.

The exterior view of the Jingzhou Fuling Processing and Trade Center.

Jingzhou will continue to prioritize Fuling strain selection and breeding to enhance yields; promote the construction of standardized plantations to expand the cultivation scale; intensify investment attraction efforts to strengthen and extend the industrial chain; attract talent to enhance technological innovation; intensify deep processing capacity to improve economic efficiency; and, boost brand publicity to continuously expand product marketing.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn. 

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: Xinhua