Greenhouse Vegetables Help Farmers in Lhasa, Tibet, China Get Rich

The weather in March is still cold despite the early warmth. In the Yangda Modern Facility Agriculture Demonstration Park in Doilungdeqen District, Lhasa, built with aid funds from Beijing, people from nearby villages are working the soil in vegetable greenhouses, preparing for this year's planting.

When the reporter walked into the vegetable greenhouse, Nyangga, who has a mild physical disability, was working alongside the laborers. Last year she had a net income of 100,000 yuan, but in 2014 she was still a poor household relying on subsistence allowances. Li Penghui, deputy director of the park's management committee, told the reporter that when the park was built in 2011, the township provided Nyangga with a greenhouse free of charge to grow vegetables, but due to technical problems she made no profit that year.

Nyangga said: "The first 200 greenhouses built were all allocated to people whose land had been requisitioned, and the rent was very cheap compared with the market. But everyone lacked planting skills and made no profit, so the next year basically all of them were returned to the government."

To solve the technical problems of vegetable cultivation, the park hired experts from the Vegetable Research Institute of the Tibet Autonomous Region Academy of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Sciences to provide free technical guidance to the people, and also rented out some greenhouses to workers from the mainland who came to Tibet, striving to set a demonstration example for the local people.

The next year, Nyangga's green peppers and tomatoes began to turn a profit. Having tasted the benefits, with the help of the township she contracted 9 greenhouses in one go. At present, Nyangga has paid off the 100,000 yuan she owed for building a new house, shaken off the label of poor household, and her daughter has just been admitted to Ningxia Medical University. She said: "The good days have only just begun."

It is understood that the park now has 360 greenhouses, growing more than 40 kinds of cash crops including common vegetables, edible fungi, flowers, fruits and medicinal herbs. To expand vegetable sales, Doilungdeqen District specially equipped three vegetable direct-sales vehicles to make purchases at the park, and also set up an exhibition and sales hall at the park entrance. Orders from work units and schools mean many vegetable growers do not need to worry about sales.

Li Penghui did a calculation for the reporter: for the 865 mu of transferred land, the government pays more than 1 million yuan in land transfer funds each year; 11 people have regular jobs in the park, each earning more than 20,000 yuan in wages per year; the park uses more than 4,000 person-times of short-term labor each year, with each person paid 100 yuan per day. Not counting planting income, the 124 households involved in land transfer each have an average cash income of more than 10,000 yuan.

"From growing vegetables alone, each greenhouse yields an average benefit of about 28,000 yuan per year. At present, high-value-added cash crops such as lingzhi have been successfully tested in the park and are ready to be promoted for planting. Through the industrial park, the people can not only escape poverty, but also become wealthy," said Li Penghui.