Love flowers become fortune flowers, boosting farmers' incomes
On the morning of April 27, a light rain was falling. Gradually, a bright red color came into view: 500 mu of roses in Jianlong Town, Bishan District, Chongqing, were blooming in unison, like a sea of flowers. It is understood that Baiguo Village in Jianlong Town has a long history of rose cultivation and currently has 500 mu of roses, generating direct economic income of 4 million yuan and helping more than 200 nearby households prosper.
Zhu Yunfen is a villager from Group 2 of Baiguo Village. Now 60 years old, she and her husband have grown roses for more than ten years and have prospered through roses. The roses in Baiguo Village are not ordinary ornamental roses but edible roses. They have a rich fragrance and can be made into rose tea, rose drinks and more.
At first, like many growers in the village, Zhu Yunfen had no experience and simply waited for vendors to come and buy. "A single sales channel makes it easy to be controlled by vendors," Zhu Yunfen said. In 2012, after the vendors who came to buy flowers had collected enough, they were unwilling to buy more, and several mu of roses her family had grown rotted in the fields, distressing the whole family. More than a hundred growers in the village had the same experience as Zhu Yunfen's family. For a time, sighs from villagers could be heard while walking through the village. But Zhu Yunfen and Zeng Youxin were unwilling to give in. Old Zeng, who had toiled all his life, said people cannot always be stopped by difficulties.
Zhu Yunfen and her husband Zeng Youxin chose to pick roses in the fields at night with flashlights, and early the next morning they carried the roses through streets and alleys, hoping that all the roses on their more than ten mu would not rot in the fields. That same year, Zeng Youxin chose to carry roses through streets and alleys to sell them himself. Laifeng, Qinggang and the Bishan urban area, the two even sold roses to downtown Chongqing. That year, when more than 200 households in the village suffered heavy losses, Zhu Yunfen's family still recovered their costs.
By chance, Zhu Yunfen saw a piece of news on television saying that edible roses could also be made into flower tea, with beauty-enhancing effects. So Zhu Yunfen sold fresh roses from March to May wholesale to vendors at 7 yuan per jin, and sold them loose at 15 yuan per jin. After June, fresh roses could not fetch a good price, so Zhu Yunfen dried them to make flower tea, or crushed the petals and preserved them with white sugar or honey to make a thirst-quenching rose drink for summer heat. Not only that, in September Zhu Yunfen also chose to cut flower branches and insert them into the fields for propagation; after 5 months each plant could sell for another 5 to 15 yuan. In 2016, Zhu Yunfen's family sold more than 30,000 rose seedlings. Although rose flowers brought in 80,000 to 90,000 yuan a year, Zhu Yunfen still hoped for greater achievements. "If we could attract a leading enterprise to introduce advanced technology and open up a new business of extracting rose essential oil, I would still want to plant a few more mu," Zhu Yunfen said. Rose cultivation does not require high technical skill, and there are no potential risks such as insect disasters, drought or flood disasters. As long as one is a bit more diligent, there can be considerable income. But because there is currently no leading enterprise, and the merchants who come from Jiangjin to buy are also buying a fixed quantity, she is afraid of planting too much and being unable to sell it.
If a leading enterprise could settle here, it would add another source of income for the village's flower growers. Zhu Yunfen looks forward to the future.