Planting new future with herbal medicines

A village in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region is planting traditional Chinese herbal medicines to raise people's income and living standards.

From a specialized cooperative set up to plant the herbal medicines in Xiaomiaozi village in Songshan district of Chifeng city in 2014, the planting field has increased from 500 mu (33.33 hectares) to 2,000 mu in 2023. Last year, another 2,000 mu fields belonging to individual households also began planting the herbal medicines.

Now, the average comprehensive net income of the field per mu exceeds 5,000 yuan ($688), a tenfold increase in 10 years.

The herbal medicine variety expanded from a single platycodon grandiflorum to more than 10 varieties such as achyranthes bidentata, belamcanda chinensis, scutellaria baicalensis, and saposhnikovia divaricate.

Apart from expanding plantation areas, the cooperative also invested 8 million yuan to set up a factory to process these medicinal ingredients, improving the added-value of these products and also increasing employment opportunities for the villagers.