How can growing morel mushrooms lead to wealth? A female village official leads villagers to explore a new path

Duan Fubo is a clever person with vision: she opened a shop and a brick factory and dug up life's "first bucket of gold." She is also a capable person with a sense of responsibility: after becoming a village official, she thought about how to lead the villagers to wealth together. Seeing large tracts of land left idle by villagers in winter, she investigated many options, took the lead in trial planting, and wanted to accumulate some successful experience for everyone so that all could become prosperous. It looks like this time her plan is about to come true--

"The year before last, I passed the exam to become the village accountant and clerk, sitting in the office every day. I saw that after the autumn harvest, the villagers left large tracts of land idle and planted nothing. So I searched the internet to see whether something could be planted on the idle winter land, which could also increase the people's income. In the end, I chose to grow morel mushrooms." Recently, in her field full of morel mushrooms in Qinggou Village, Haiwan Township, Leibo County, village accountant Duan Fubo said this while picking morel mushrooms. In the greenhouse covered with black shade netting, the mature morel mushrooms stood out conspicuously among the small grasses. Duan Fubo had invited seven or eight women to help, and while picking morel mushrooms, they chatted and laughed together.

Let the land no longer sit idle in winter

Duan Fubo, 34 this year, lived here as a child. In 2002, after graduating from Chengdu University of Technology, Duan Fubo returned to her hometown. Because the state no longer assigned jobs, she chose to start her own business. She first opened a general merchandise store in the county town. In 2005, construction began on the giant Xiluodu Hydropower Station on the Jinsha River at the border between Leibo County and Yongshan County, Yunnan Province. Duan Fubo seized the business opportunity and, together with her husband, opened a cement brick factory. The cement bricks produced were specially supplied for houses built by Xiluodu migrants.

"After running the brick factory for 8 years, the money I earned built a building in the county town." Duan Fubo said that building the house almost used up all the money earned from the brick factory. Later, as more brick factories appeared, the bricks produced exceeded demand, so she began to choose a new project to start a business again.

In 2014, various villages in Leibo County recruited village accountants and clerks. Duan Fubo applied for Qinggou Village and was admitted. Sitting in the village committee office at work, Duan Fubo began to think about the development of the whole village. Browsing the internet, she found that growing morel mushrooms was very profitable at present. And the local soil, climate and other conditions were all very suitable for growing morel mushrooms.

"Morel mushrooms are planted after autumn and harvested before the main spring season the next year." Duan Fubo said that this timing exactly made use of the villagers' idle winter land after the autumn harvest. For this reason, Duan Fubo decided to trial-plant morel mushrooms and explore a path to wealth for the villagers.

Using morel mushrooms as a pathfinder

In fact, Duan Fubo had not dealt with morel mushrooms before. She looked up information about morel mushrooms on the internet and basically understood their growing environment, value, market prospects, management and processing, and other aspects. She also went many times to Leshan, Chengdu, Ganzi and other places to visit morel mushroom farms in person and learn growing experience.

"After the autumn harvest last year, I began discussing with villagers the rental of land for trial planting morel mushrooms." Duan Fubo said that growing morel mushrooms requires contiguous land, but the villagers' land was one plot for one family and another plot for another. Because the villagers' opinions were not unified, an awkward situation arose in which one family was willing to rent land while another was not. Duan Fubo spent a great deal of effort talking, and finally rented 20 mu of land for half a year at 600 yuan per mu.

Duan Fubo is a newly joined Communist Party member, and the trial planting of morel mushrooms was meant to explore a path to wealth for the villagers. The township Party committee, government, and departments such as the county agriculture and animal husbandry bureau all strongly supported her work. The county agriculture and animal husbandry bureau specially sent an agronomist to guide the planting.

Duan Fubo said that preparing the land, building shade sheds, installing spray pipes and so on all required a large amount of labor. For ordinary labor, Duan Fubo hired villagers from the same village and paid each person 100 yuan per day in wages; for work requiring skill, she paid 200 yuan per day to hire technical personnel from elsewhere. Working near their doorsteps, the villagers could earn more than 2,000 yuan a month, and all praised Duan Fubo as a good official.

"The morel mushroom spawn Duan Fubo brought in from the Soil and Fertilizer Management Institute of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, with management measures in place, plus suitable local soil and climate, made the morel mushrooms better in quality than those from elsewhere and also somewhat higher in yield." said Huang Jingjiang, an agronomist at the county agriculture and animal husbandry bureau. Morel mushrooms like moisture, and can grow normally at temperatures between 3 and 20 degrees. The climate, humidity and temperature of many townships in the county are suitable for artificial cultivation of morel mushrooms, and growing morel mushrooms is a good route for the people to escape poverty and become prosperous.

Now, Duan Fubo's morel mushrooms have begun to be harvested, with fresh mushrooms yielding about 250 kg per mu. Because the local market is limited, they can only be dried and transported to Chengdu, Chongqing and other places for sale.

"After the fresh mushrooms from 1 mu of land are dried, there are roughly 30 to 40 kg, and the sales income after being transported elsewhere is more than 30,000 yuan." Duan Fubo said that at present, morel mushrooms are not only no problem to sell, but are also in great demand. For the 20 mu of morel mushrooms she planted, each mu would earn at least more than 10,000 yuan. She invested about 300,000 yuan, and not only quickly recovered the cost, but could also make a profit.

Good experience should be shared by everyone

Duan Fubo introduced that many people are relatively unfamiliar with morel mushrooms. In fact, morel mushrooms are a rare and precious wild mushroom, with unique growing conditions and broad market prospects. Morel mushrooms have tender flesh and are sweet and delicious, rich in protein, carbohydrates, multiple vitamins and more than 20 kinds of amino acids. They have the effects of tonifying the kidney, strengthening yang, nourishing the brain and refreshing the mind, and are mainly exported to European and American countries and sold to first-tier cities in China.

Trial planting proved that Leibo's soil, climate and other conditions are very suitable for growing morel mushrooms. Growing morel mushrooms is a very effective good route at present for carrying out targeted poverty alleviation and helping mountain-area people escape poverty and become prosperous.

"Rural people have a low educational level and outdated ways of thinking, and some villagers do not easily accept new things." Duan Fubo said that as a rural Party member and official, she could only convince the people with facts, integrate scattered land, strengthen infrastructure construction, strive for all villagers in the village to be able to use idle winter land to grow morel mushrooms, establish a morel mushroom growing professional cooperative, make the morel mushroom growing industry bigger and stronger, create a high-quality morel mushroom brand exclusive to Leibo County, increase the villagers' economic income, and let all the people in the village live a moderately prosperous life as soon as possible.

(Liangshan City News)