Hechi in Guangxi has been vigorously developing and modernizing its agricultural industry in recent years, paying a particular focus on edible mushrooms.

The initiatives that the government has put in place are aimed at helping local farmers overcome poverty and achieve prosperity through exemplary demonstration, cooperative management and technical training.

The Hechi government encouraged its farmers to cultivate edible mushrooms, as this can be done in a standardized way and through cooperative organizations.

One success story has been the Lvshanyuan Specialized Planting and Breeding Cooperative in Nandan county. After selling a bumper crop of cloud ear fungus, the cooperative plowed the money back into investment and built more workshops. It added more than 4.67 hectares of cultivation areas and 300,000 mushroom sticks, increasing its annual output value to three million yuan ($462,000).

In 2015, the whole city of Hechi cultivated 166 million sticks of edible fungus, 14.87 million more than in 2014, surpassing the original target of 150 million. The total output of fresh mushrooms reached 69,000 tons, achieving a production value of 480 million yuan.

Hechi also constructed 51 edible fungus high-yield demonstration bases and 42 standardized production bases last year, benefitting more than 13,000 farmer households nearby.

Edited by Owen Fishwick