Growing Golden Silk Imperial Chrysanthemum brings hope of poverty alleviation to Guanyin Village in the Huangdiling Forest Farm of Shaodong County

Shaoyang News Online (correspondent Zhang Yibin, Qin Mingshi) On June 8, Liu Jinfeng, a villager of Guanyin Village in the Huangdiling Forest Farm of Shaodong County, told the officials of the Shaodong County Rural Highway Management Office who are paired with her for assistance: "The 3 mu of Golden Silk Imperial Chrysanthemum I planted this year are growing very well, and I estimate they will sell for more than 10,000 yuan. Thank you for finding us a good way to escape poverty and become prosperous."

Guanyin Village is a provincially designated poverty-stricken village with 986 people, of whom 460 are poor. Four years ago, after the Shaodong County Rural Highway Management Office sent a team to the village to carry out poverty alleviation work, it kept looking for ways to help poor households escape poverty and become prosperous, based on the village's characteristics of abundant mountain forest and scarce land. Last year, the office introduced the medicinal herb Golden Silk Imperial Chrysanthemum to Guanyin Village. In order to relieve growers' worries, the office provided subsidies for seedlings to poor households, contacted a medicinal herb dealer in the Lianqiao medicinal materials market to provide technical services, and signed protected-price purchase contracts with farmers. Persuaded by the poverty alleviation officials, the village's poor households planted more than 10 mu. With a try-it-and-see attitude, Liu Jinfeng test-planted more than 1 mu of Golden Silk Imperial Chrysanthemum and sold it for 2,450 yuan at the end of the year. After everyone got a taste of the benefits of growing Golden Silk Imperial Chrysanthemum, the village's poor households expanded the planting to more than 100 mu this year. The Shaodong County Rural Highway Management Office decided that while providing seedling subsidies to poor households, it would build a baking room and purchase baking equipment for the villagers this year, so that poor households can produce with peace of mind and escape poverty as soon as possible.