Flower growing brings happiness in Jietou

In summer and autumn each year, the Jietou town sees flowers blooming in fields of immensity, waving slightly in the breeze. Jietou is a garden-like basin that is surrounded by the Gaoligong Mountain in southwest Yunnan’s Tengchong City.

Amid the flowers, smiling farmers are busy picking the marigold flowers, which will be purchased by companies in bulk. Since 2018, Cao Wencang, a local farmer, managed to contract 3.3 hectares of arable land for growing marigolds, from which he earns a yearly income of around 100,000 yuan.

Lying at the foot of Mount Gaoligong, Jietou features vertical climates, rich bio-diversity and tourism resources, having been selected as a pilot of the first beautiful villages nationwide. In 2015, the town is rated as a “national model in leisure agriculture and rural tourism.”

The oil-seed flower has been a traditional plant in Jietou. In early February and mid March each year, the golden flowers are in full bloom on 10,000 hectares of fields, drawing in hosts of tourists. However, the oil-seed flower sight cannot last long, making it hard to sustain local tourism.

According to Zhao Qinghua, chief of Jietou, the town began planting marigolds in 2018, in a bid to prolong the period of sightseeing. In 2020, the flower covered 1666.6 hectares, and the increased output is expected to be valued at a total of 40 million yuan.

Zhao said planting marigolds is easy labor, low in cost but high in output. As a result, it has been seen as a major poverty-alleviation business by the needy and impoverished groups. “The introduction of marigolds makes up for the weak links in local tourism, and now flower are visible in Jietou all year round,” said Zhao.

Meng Yingguo, a 57-year-old resident in the Jieming community, is a pioneer in getting rich by growing flowers. Over the years, he has boosted his income by growing the oil-seed flower and the marigolds. Two years ago, Meng paid off all debts owed during his children’s college days, and he also spent over 200,000 yuan building up a two-storey and 200-squaremeter wooden villa. Now, his son and daughter have graduated and they both work in Kunming. The family leads a sound life on the whole.

The immense flower fields in Jietou have not only increased farmers’ income, but also boosted local tourism. Since 2014, Jietou has hosted sessions of the Gaoligong Flower Sea Tourist Festival, inviting in over 2.5 million visitors. In the future, the town will hold the marathon, cycling and other events of sports tourism. Life for locals will be better.

Reporting by Zi Qiang (Xinhua); Trans-editing by Wang Shixue