Jinhua, January 12 (Xinhua) -- From "a piece of ginger" to "a tour": Yongkang, Zhejiang activates the driving force for rural prosperity.
Authors: Dong Yixin, Jiang Lifeng, Xu Nuo
On a crisp winter morning, a light mist lingered over Sanhe Village in Tangxian Town, Yongkang, Zhejiang Province. Inside the local Xiaojiang Gongfu Workshop, steam rose from iron pots as Wuzhiyan ginger and brown sugar simmered slowly, their spicy and sweet aromas filling the air.
By leveraging the integration of agriculture, culture, and tourism, this ancient village with a three- to four-hundred-year history of ginger cultivation is forging a path of rural prosperity empowered by distinctive industries.
“In the past, ginger cultivation was a small-scale operation.” Cheng Yuanxing, a local villager in his sixties, recalled that in the early years, ginger from Sanhe Village was mostly sold by carrying it on shoulder poles to the market, and it was inevitable that it would be difficult to sell when the market was not good.
Today, with the construction of the Gongfu Workshop and the implementation of the regional cooperation mechanism, the traditional planting industry in Sanhe Village has ushered in a turning point. As an important radiation village of Yongkang City's "Colorful Rural Tourism Complex" project, Sanhe Village has been incorporated into the overall layout of coordinated development of local towns such as Huajie, Tangxian, Xiangzhu, Zhoushan, and Qiancang - taking fruit picking as the starting point, leisure agriculture as the foundation, and homestay vacation as the extension, the scattered rural resources are being connected into lines and then into a whole.
Among them, Tangxian Town, together with neighboring towns such as Yiwu Chian, Dongyang Huashui, and Wuyi Jiaodao in Jinhua, formed the "Common Prosperity Cooperation Alliance" to work together on key aspects such as cold chain logistics, common prosperity workshops, and brand sales, opening up production and sales channels for specialty agricultural products such as Wuzhiyan ginger.
"Orders are handled by someone, and packaging and warehousing are centrally managed, so my income has doubled compared to before," said Mr. Huang, a local ginger grower.
Through the production and sales platform built by the alliance, the online sales of ginger from Wuzhiyan Town exceeded 5 million yuan, enabling villagers to increase their income and find employment right at their doorsteps.
Recently, the beautiful rural scenery of Yongkang, Zhejiang Province, has attracted tourists. (File photo) Provided by Yongkang Municipal Media Convergence CenterMoreover, technological empowerment has become another fulcrum for the integration of agriculture, culture, and tourism in Yongkang.
In the "Gushan-Longshan 10,000-Mu Square" project, the local government integrated over 13,000 mu of land with a total investment exceeding 480 million yuan, creating a shared prosperity farmland integrating ecological agriculture, farming culture, rural tourism, and intelligent agricultural machinery. Currently, the land consolidation for the project is basically complete, and it is expected to receive over 150,000 tourists annually. The introduction of new technologies such as autonomous driving agricultural machinery and drone operations has not only improved agricultural production efficiency but also enriched the agricultural experience.
Similar initiatives are flourishing in Yongkang: Dachen Village in Qiancang Town has developed 48 distinctive homestays with over 1,600 beds, attracting more than 400,000 tourists annually; Shanmentou Village in Jiangnan Subdistrict attracts over 200,000 tourists annually with Wuju Opera as its featured experience; Xiuyan Village in Tangxian Town has created a cartoon IP around Yongkang gray geese and built the "Goose Brigade Prosperity Workshop" to promote the integrated development of animal husbandry and cultural tourism; and Qiaoxiadong Village in Longshan Town has built a camping base, a cultural academy, and an agricultural product exhibition and sales platform, forming a complete chain of development integrating tourism, production, and sales.
"From cross-regional collaboration to the implementation of industrial projects, and then to the deep integration of science and technology with culture, Yongkang's practice of integrating agriculture, culture, and tourism is continuously releasing a synergistic effect, promoting the transformation of rural tourism from 'point-based development' to 'regional linkage'," said a relevant official from Yongkang City. He added that the city will further leverage the integration of agriculture, culture, and tourism to continuously improve the rural environment, promote industrial efficiency, and increase farmers' income. (End)
