Huanjiang supports poor areas using technology

Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county in Hechi has been recruiting agricultural experts and technical personnel in recent years to provide guidance for farmers in its 12 townships.

The agricultural experts and technical personnel are hired to carry out technical trainings, activities to popularize scientific knowledge, as well as to introduce advanced technologies and equipment.

The characteristic industries in the county, such as sericulture, tea-oil trees, Chinese herbal medicine, and fruit, have seen rapid development in recent years, becoming pillar industries to help lift impoverished farmers out of poverty.

"The silkworms that I raised before would get purulent diseases easily, and sometimes I couldn't even recoup the costs. Thanks to the guidance of the agricultural experts, the income from raising silkworms in my home alone has been more than 60,000 yuan ($8,539.29) this year," said Wei Shanhong, a registered poverty-stricken villager in Dacai township of Huanjiang.

Since the beginning of 2019, the number of people who have received technical training from the county's specially recruited agricultural experts totaled 1,680. More than 45 industrial production demonstration bases have been built up, while 20 new technologies were introduced to the county.

Supported by science and technology, the area of productive mulberry fields in the county by the end of 2018 increased to 186,000 mu (12,400 hectares), and the number of sericulture farmers totaled 57,000.

In 2018, the total income of farmers who plant mulberries and breed silkworms in the county was 1.21 billion yuan, while the average income of sericulture farmers was 21,200 yuan.