Ten thousand mu of Bupleurum in Boye County, Hebei helps farmers get rich

"One mu of land brings in at least 5,000 yuan. Our village has begun large-scale cultivation of Bupleurum, a medicinal herb, and more than 1,500 households in the village have taken it up," said Gao Hui, a large-scale grower in Dugezhuang Village, Boye County, Hebei Province, in a recent interview. "We growers don't worry about sales, and the price is guaranteed, because we have signed contracts with the village's Cuiwei Bupleurum Cooperative. In 2015 my family planted 15 mu, with a yield of 120 jin of Bupleurum root per mu. The cooperative bought it at 50 yuan per market jin. After deducting the cost of seeds, farm inputs and pesticides, the net income was more than 80,000 yuan. In 2016 I planted more than 30 mu. Thanks to proper management, it grew well, and the net income was around 160,000 yuan."

"Our village has a long tradition of growing medicinal herbs. But because market conditions were unstable and there were no orders, the villagers faced great risk in growing them, and in some years they even lost money, so their enthusiasm was low. Before 2008, the village's Bupleurum planting area was only about a hundred mu or so, all scattered plots by individual households, with no scale to speak of," said Liu Shiliang, the cooperative's director, standing nearby. "In 2008, through an introduction from a friend, I got some Mishima-brand Bupleurum seeds produced in Japan from Beijing. At the time I tried planting 100 mu. The new variety of Bupleurum not only had high yield and good quality, but also had strong disease resistance during the growing period. That year I made more than 400,000 yuan."

After getting rich, Liu Shiliang did not forget his fellow villagers. In 2009, with help from the relevant county government departments, Liu Shiliang led the founding of the Boye Cuiwei Bupleurum Professional Cooperative and established a direct sales channel with Japan's Tsumura & Co. The whole village's Bupleurum is grown under contract and all of it is exported to Japan. In late November 2013, the Cuiwei Cooperative signed an agreement with Beijing Shennong Baicao Holding Co., Ltd. to jointly build a modern medicinal herb industrial park of more than ten thousand mu. Both sides strictly follow the relevant national technical requirements and rules to develop medicinal herb cultivation in a standardised way and effectively raise the level of intensive, industrialised, large-scale and standardised production of medicinal herbs. Good reputation and the guarantee of getting rich have led more farming households in the village to take up Bupleurum cultivation. At present, the cooperative's members have grown from nearly a hundred households at the beginning to more than 1,500 households, accounting for 95% of the village's farming households, and the planting area has grown from just over 100 mu at the beginning to 15,000 mu, effectively broadening the villagers' path to prosperity.