|
TAIYUAN, May 11-- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Monday afternoon visited an organic daylily farm in Yunzhou District of Datong City during his inspection tour in north China's Shanxi Province. He also visited a village in the city's Xiping Township to learn about poverty alleviation efforts. In Yunzhou District, part of the extremely poor area in the Yanshan and Taihang mountains, growing daylilies -- a kind of edible flower and traditional Chinese medicine for soothing nerves -- has become a pillar industry. The daylily growing has a history of 600 years in Yunzhou, but there was no large-scale plantation before 2010. Over the past 10 years, the area of daylily flowers in the district has grown tenfold to around 10,000 hectares. "My life now blossoms thanks to the daylily," said Tang Wan, a local farmer. By growing 2.67 hectares of daylilies, the once poor Tang was able to support his three children in going to college. "The flowers have changed the lives of many. And poverty no longer bothers us," said Tang, adding the village has many "daylily college students," "daylily cars" and "daylily houses" -- phenomena that were rare before the flower was found a cash cow. Impoverished counties in Shanxi have developed the planting of apples, potatoes and daylilies into industries to guarantee farmers stable jobs and incomes. More than 1 million people have been lifted out of poverty, said Wang Zhiqiang, a poverty alleviation official with the provincial government. | 
