Daylily becomes a cash crop that makes ordinary people rich

With the warm spring sun shining and gentle breezes blowing, the earth that slept through the winter is full of vitality again. On the morning of February 23, in Honglian Village, Jinyan Tujia Township, Cili County, reporters saw villagers in small groups hoeing weeds and turning the soil in their own fields, as the farming work of the new year quietly began. "They are all daylily growers in the village, and their enthusiasm for planting grows higher every year!" said Yu Xinxiang, head of the Jiuduxi Daylily Planting Professional Cooperative in Cili County.

"I have been growing daylilies for more than 30 years, and I will keep growing them! Daylily is the 'cash crop' for ordinary folks like us!" 65-year-old Yu Jinxue is a member of the cooperative. He eagerly did the accounts for the reporter. Last year the elderly man grew two mu of daylilies, with a dry daylily yield of about 150 kg per mu. Selling it all to the cooperative at a unit price of 40 yuan per jin, the income was about 12,000 yuan per mu, or 24,000 yuan for two mu. In addition, the cooperative gives out some subsidies every year. By contrast, if rice were grown, the income would be only about 1,000 yuan per mu, far less economically rewarding than growing daylilies. It is understood that the Jiuduxi Cooperative was established in 2010 and now has 520 member growing households, distributed across Minjia Village, Honglian Village and Shuangzhong Village in Jinyan, as well as Zouma Village in Xiangshi. In 2015, the total planting area reached 5,200 mu, with total output value of nearly 30 million yuan.

Because it strictly follows green and ecological standards in cultivation, uses no chemical fertilizers and no pesticides, and adopts a traditional processing technique with a history of 200 years, the daylilies produced by the Jiuduxi Cooperative taste very good and are very popular with consumers after entering the market. "In addition to supplying the local market, our daylilies are also sold far away to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha and other cities. Demand exceeds supply, and the highest unit sales price has reached more than 100 yuan per jin. At the end of last year, the cooperative signed a 2016 sales contract worth 20 million yuan with Shanghai Zhongjun Group!" Speaking of market sales, Yu Xinxiang looked delighted.

In recent years, with the great attention and strong support of the Party committees and governments at the city, county and township levels and relevant functional departments, the Jiuduxi Cooperative has reached a new level every year, and the planting scale has expanded year by year. "In 2015 the cooperative was included in Hunan Province's first batch of selenium-enriched industries; in 2016 the cooperative was included as a contact enterprise in the city's 'Double Linkage, Double Resolution' themed activity, and so on. The emergence of this series of favorable conditions gives us confidence to develop the cooperative even better, build Jiuduxi daylily into a distinctive agricultural brand, and thereby help more farmers become rich and move toward a moderately prosperous life!" Yu Xinxiang said full of confidence.