Contract tea planting lifts an entire village

FUZHOU — Wang Mingjiang was struggling to make ends meet until four years ago when he joined a planting program to become a contract tea grower in Fujian province.

This year, the farmer in Xiadang village is expected to make more than 30,000 yuan ($4,610) — a handsome income for a villager in the mountainous region.

In 2017, the annual per capita income of Xiadang almost tripled from 2014. All 31 poor households in the village were lifted out of poverty.

The tea planting program that changed the life of Wang and his neighbors was initiated in 2014 by local officials to integrate individual growers and standardize their planting procedures.

Instead of selling tea, the village offered to rent 40 hectares of tea fields to companies and individuals around the country.

For 20,000 yuan, a customer can rent a small plot of tea for a year, and get 50 kilograms of tea in return.

The village also set up a company to manage manufacturing and sales.

To ensure food safety, only organic fertilizers and pesticides are allowed. Through dozens of networked cameras, customers can monitor the whole process of tea production from their cellphones.

“Customers feel more confident about the quality of our products, as they can monitor and track the process in real time,” village Party secretary Wang Mingzu said.

The program also helped drive the price of unprocessed tea leaves up from 4 to 20 yuan per kilogram last year, leading to large increases in profits.

Besides managing the tea business, the village company also branched out to selling local specialties online.

“Our sales have reached 11.56 million yuan since we started operating online in August,” said Fan Chunyue, e-commerce manager of the company.