In Liangdang, Gansu, the people of Lingguan rely on small seedlings to build a big industry for prosperity

Cao Zongmeng, village Party secretary of Lingguan Village, Yangdian Township, Liangdang County, Longnan City, Gansu Province

3-year-old lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana) seedlings

Lingguan Village is located in Yangdian Township, Liangdang County, Longnan City, Gansu Province. It is surrounded by the largest native area of wild lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana) in Asia. As the saying goes, "live off the mountain you live on." Village Party secretary Cao Zongmeng lifted himself out of poverty through the seedling-growing industry, and now he has led his fellow villagers onto the road to prosperity.

Cao Zongmeng's "bond" with lacebark pine dates back to 2007. Because the village sits right next to the native lacebark pine area, every autumn the villagers would go up into the mountain woods to collect seeds and sell them to outside buyers. In one conversation, Cao Zongmeng discovered that the market price and prospects for lacebark pine were very promising. After doing research and consulting others, he set aside half a mu of his own land for a bold experiment, but his first attempt got off to a bad start. He said: "I didn't have a grasp of the techniques or anything else, so I planted them in the ground and no seedlings came up. The next year I looked into it and got a grasp of seedling-growing techniques. After I came back, I grew seedlings on half a mu at my own home. That year they grew successfully, and the seedlings came up quite well. I remember very clearly that at the time I sold them for 176,000."

Having made money, Cao Zongmeng was overjoyed, and he also began to lead villagers in developing the seedling industry. But technical support and guaranteed sales channels remained the two major difficulties for seedling development. Starting in 2014, with the help and coordination of the paired-assistance unit, the Gansu Provincial People's Procuratorate, both major difficulties were resolved. Cao Zongmeng said: "The provincial procuratorate coordinated for experts from the Bailongjiang Forestry Research Institute to come to our area and give us technical guidance. Whenever we run into any pests or diseases, we take photos or videos and send them over, and then they analyze them and guide us. On sales channels, the provincial procuratorate also actively coordinated with the Jiuquan, Jiayuguan, Zhangye and Wuwei areas to guarantee sales, so now there is basically no difficulty in our village's seedling development."

In recent years, the seedlings in the fields have been hauled away truckload after truckload, and Cao Zongmeng's household immediately saw a change. "Now we've built a house at home, we're driving a car, our finances are more comfortable, and our life has changed a great deal."

Last year, Lingguan Village innovatively set up "prosperity mutual-aid groups." Cao Zongmeng and the large-scale growers took the lead in forming groups, so that poor households quickly had their own mutual-aid industry. Cao Zongmeng explained that this model is "complementing each other's strengths and creating a win-win together." "I took on four households. We poor households have land and labor, and I provide the seedlings. The poor households provide the land and labor, and we plant the seedlings in their fields. The profits are split fifty-fifty. That is to say, half of the seedlings I plant are theirs."