County’s crops provide golden opportunity
Located on the borders of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous regions, the golden rapeseed flowers in Luoping county of Yunnan are the first to blossom in China, usually shortly after Spring Festival in February, and can last until April.
About 240 kilometers east of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, the county is a major tourist attraction due to its unique karst landscapes, but its biggest draw is its 1 million mu (667,000 hectares) of rapeseed, which make up one of China’s most vast expanses of the crop.
Many typical Karst hills dot the flat farmland and, when the green land turns into a sea of the golden flowers in the spring, visitors can enjoy panoramic views of the fields just by ascending a well-placed hill.
Large numbers of tourists flock to the county every year to enjoy the spring scenery, and it has earned nicknames like “the world’s largest garden” and a “paradise for photographers”.
Since 1999, the Luoping government has organized an annual Rapeseed Flower Festival to boost local tourism.
The revenue that flows in during the flowering period accounts for half of the total tourism revenue for the year, according to local officials.
Luoping received more than 7.08 million tourists in 2019, when revenue from the tourism industry reached 8.08 billion yuan ($1.24 billion), government data shows.
The stream of tourists in recent decades has transformed the previously impoverished county by providing more job opportunities. Local people have set up small business, such as homestays, restaurants and souvenir production centers.
Rapeseed not only boosts the local tourism industry, but is also the most important local crop. Cooking oil can be extracted after the flowers wither, which provides income for local farmers. Beekeepers can also make a living by setting up hives among the rapeseed to produce honey.