Wild mountain ginseng becomes a new path to prosperity in mountainous areas
Li Hongyan, now 47 years old, serves as president of the Bingwu Mountain Wild Mountain Ginseng Association in Huinan County, Jilin Province, general manager of Longgang Mountain Ecological Specialty Products Development Co., Ltd., and the fourth-generation inheritor of the ginseng-lifting culture. Since 2007, Li Hongyan has leveraged the resource advantages of the mountainous area and blazed a path of characteristic industry for farmers to get rich. In 2010, he registered and established the "Huinan County Bingwu Mountain Wild Mountain Ginseng Planting Association," organizing 150 farming households to build 1.2 mu of understory wild mountain ginseng base, developing understory wild mountain ginseng cultivation on a scale with "unified technology, unified varieties, unified training, and unified branding." He has successively hired experts and professors to train farmers in ginseng planting and management techniques; organized local ginseng technology experts to provide technical support in all stages from seed selection, site selection, and sowing to care, harvesting, and processing, helping farmers grow understory wild mountain ginseng well. After several years of development, the association's base has continued to expand, radiating outward to drive 350 surrounding farming households to plant more than 2.8 mu of understory wild mountain ginseng, with an economic value of more than 300 million yuan. By 2015, the annual per capita net income of ginseng farmers reached more than 19,000 yuan, exceeding the annual per capita income of farmers in Huinan County by more than 50%.
Li Hongyan also actively promotes organic planting and processing techniques to farmers, using modern agricultural science and technology to produce safe and trustworthy organic green food, and strictly controlling pollution such as pesticides. In 2014, the understory wild mountain ginseng base passed national-level organic base certification, farmers' incomes rose significantly, inspiring farmers' enthusiasm to "live off the mountain while nurturing the mountain," promoting a virtuous cycle in the characteristic industry, and protecting the ecological environment.
As the fourth-generation inheritor of the ancient ginseng-lifting technique, Li Hongyan has passed on the ancient ginseng-lifting technique to farmers at the base. Understory wild mountain ginseng lifted using the ancient method can ensure the integrity, freshness, and value of the wild mountain ginseng, and further ensures the sustainable use of the mountain, forging the brand of Changbai Mountain understory wild mountain ginseng; tracing the history and culture of Huinan, the Manchu homeland -- the Haixi Jurchen Huifa tribe -- he combined traditional Manchu tea-roasting techniques with modern tea-roasting processes to develop Manchu Jurchen red Acanthopanax senticosus health tea; leveraging the regional advantages of Huinan County's volcanic landforms, he developed green rice such as volcanic rock organic rice and volcanic rock organic selenium-rich rice. Boosted by historical culture, resource advantages, and high-quality products, the brand awareness of red Acanthopanax senticosus health tea and green rice has been greatly enhanced. In 2015, the "Longgang Mountain" brand was rated as a Famous Trademark of Jilin Province, and Longgang Mountain Ecological Specialty Products Development Co., Ltd. successively won honors including the Jilin Province Forestry Industrialization Production Demonstration Base and the Municipal Advanced Collective in Science Popularization, while Li Hongyan himself also received honors including National-Level Science Popularization Leader and Huinan County Youth Entrepreneurship and Wealth-Building Leader.