Farmers in Zhangsitan Village Pick Mushrooms Under the Forest and "Pick" Out a Path to Prosperity

"Today we have already picked more than 100 baskets of fresh shiitake mushrooms, over 3,000 jin. On the busiest day we can harvest 10,000 jin. Most of these shiitake mushrooms are sold to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangzhou and Shenzhen." said Jia Jinping, head of the shiitake mushroom planting base in Zhangsitan Village, Xindian Town, Ye County, Henan Province, the other day. The shiitake mushroom base is right inside a large poplar forest. Rows upon rows of shiitake mushroom greenhouses stand in neat array, bags of mushroom logs are arranged in tidy order, flower shiitake mushrooms raise their stems and spread their caps, and workers are busy picking shiitake mushrooms and watering the shiitake mushroom logs...

"More than 70 greenhouses are all built on the poplars. On the greenhouse frames alone we saved more than 280,000 yuan." Jia Jinping introduced that at the busiest times the shiitake mushroom base needs more than 100 people a day, and almost all of them are local villagers. Each worker earns 40 yuan a day, and can earn another 20 yuan in overtime pay for working at night, finding a path to prosperity for quite a few local families.

Jia Jinping did this calculation for our writer: they planted mushroom logs for 500,000 bags of shiitake mushrooms, and on average one bag of mushroom logs can produce 2.5 jin to 3 jin of mushrooms. Based on the current average purchase price of 6 yuan per jin of fresh shiitake mushrooms on the market, after deducting costs for one bag of mushroom logs, and conservatively estimating one season of shiitake mushrooms at 500,000 bags, after deducting labor costs and other costs the annual net profit is still above 500,000 yuan.

Jia Jinping also introduced that planting under the forest not only makes full use of the land, but also uses the poplars as frames, while the leaves serve as an extra layer of sun-shading net. While reducing cost inputs, the ever-growing poplars also make the farmers' assets increase in value year after year. At present, their products are already sold far away to multiple surrounding provinces.