Hebei Shexian's "economic valleys" drive sustained income growth for farmers

Reported by Wang Yuehong, reporter Li Jie. "Our Zhangjiazhuang Valley is known for its prickly ash and medicinal herbs; over a year, each household earns about 20,000 yuan." Recently, Zhang Zhiming, Party secretary of Gengle Town in Shexian County, Hebei Province, explained, "'Economic valleys' have promoted sustained income growth for farming communities, fattening the wallets of people in the mountainous areas."

Shexian is an old revolutionary base area and also a mountainous county. In recent years, the county has coordinated poverty alleviation with comprehensive mountainous development, modern agricultural development and tourism development, going up the mountains and down into the valleys to tap resources, helping the people plan paths out of poverty, developing industries that enrich the people, and actively building distinctive economic valleys.

On the one hand, it strongly supports Chinese medicinal herbs, allocating 12.87 million yuan for the Chinese medicinal herb industry and 6.69 million yuan for supporting infrastructure, building 10 demonstration parks and forming a group of distinctive "herb valleys." On the other hand, it cultivates the walnut and prickly ash industries, the tourism industry and household handicrafts. Along both banks of the Zhanghe River, it vigorously develops rice sightseeing, grape picking, vegetable parks and more, building fine agricultural sightseeing valleys, and relying on scenic areas to create farmhouse inns, forming rural tourism ecological valleys. In addition, in valley areas such as Wangjinzhuang and Zhangjiazhuang, it develops distinctive planting industries such as walnuts and prickly ash, building distinctive economic valleys, and develops specialized valleys for household handicrafts such as handmade incense, vermicelli processing, reed weaving and straw weaving.

It is understood that, in order to promote better development of the economic valleys, the county has also actively built a rural e-commerce public service system, establishing rural e-commerce service stations in 280 villages across the county. Relying on e-commerce platforms, it has created a series of uniquely distinctive economic valleys, including herb valleys, prickly ash valleys, walnut valleys, handicraft valleys and tourism valleys, helping farming communities get onto the fast track out of poverty toward prosperity.