Nurturing growth

Yuangudui villager Bai Haihong, 59, also used to grow traditional medicinal crops such as angelica and astragalus on less than 0.2 hectares of land, which earned him about 13,000 yuan annually. After joining the village initiative to cultivate morels in the past year, his income has jumped to about 70,000 yuan a year.

"Morels are commonly harvested from the wild, they are very sensitive so it's not easy to cultivate them. But they are valuable－raw morels can sell for about 200 yuan a kilogram, or 2,000 yuan a kilogram for dried processed stocks," Bai said.

"Our cooperative raked in about 250,000 yuan from morels this year, with profit at about 120,000 yuan," said Dong Jianxin, 39, who heads the local agricultural and tourism projects. "We plan to plant one batch next April and another in August. Those, if successful, can reap us up to 460,000 yuan."

Nearly one hectare in the village has been set aside so far to help grow morels in sheltered facilities that cultivate the prized fungi in carefully controlled planting conditions, with training, skills upgrade, distribution channels and even a research and development facility rolled out to "scale up production", Dong said.

To promote the village's rural and ecological tourism potential, at least 10 homestay and farmstay facilities have also been set up to accommodate the growing number of weekend visitors, with an adjacent sika deer park becoming one of the top attractions.

Villager Ma Yuhong works as one of six employees at the main Yuangudui restaurant, which seats more than 100 diners contributing up to 6,000 yuan in daily revenue during peak seasons.

Ma, 31, makes about 2,000 yuan a month for the shift work she does at the restaurant, which allows her to look after her two children during its downtime. Her family also used to farm common crops.

"My husband works in the local administration and our annual household income has doubled to about 30,000 yuan a year with these improvements," she said.

Other than the locally grown morels, the restaurant specializes in chickens bred right in Yuangudui by fellow villagers like Yang Xintian.

Yang himself headed to Lanzhou construction sites for work before deciding to return to the village in 2003. He earned about 10,000 yuan a year raising chickens in his yard, barely making ends meet for his six-member household. Spurred by local government incentives and support to help develop the village economy, Yang soon set up a chicken breeding cooperative on the nearby hillside, covering about 0.27 hectares. Last year, Yang handled about 40,000 chickens as he rode on growing demand for his fowl beyond the village. By June, Yang, 40, reported up to 50,000 chickens raised, helping him raked in about 100,000 yuan.

He said county leaders had contacted him soon after President Xi's visit to consider setting up the cooperative, with his proven expertise and experience in raising poultry.

Yang said it was tough initially, with both him and his wife getting about five hours' rest a day because of the work.

"But life gradually improved. In 2015, we spent 170,000 yuan to renovate the family home with a 20,000-yuan village subsidy. The last major expenditure was 80,000 yuan to expand and upgrade the farm," Yang said.

"Now both children in the family are in school and the elderly residents in good health. We are very happy," he said.