In Dingxi, known for its poverty, the local government has adopted policies encouraging the development of private businesses, processing industries which can help more local people become wealthy and cultivation of traditional Chinese medicines, potatoes and other products suitable to local conditions.

Sun Quande, 69, a farmer in the Laoya Village of Sigou Township, Minxian County, is one of the beneficiaries of the local government policies.

Ten years ago, Sun roamed about and begged for food. Now, he has built a courtyard with eight rooms. Last year, Sun’s family earned more than 30,000 yuan by planting angelica, the root of Co Donopsis Pilosula, the root of membranous mil vetch and other traditional Chinese medicines.

The angelica of Minxian County sells very well on the China market and in southeast Asia.

Cultivation of traditional Chinese medicines not only has changed the life of Sun, but also turned the Laoya Village into a wealthy village.

Statistics show that last year, the per capita industrial income of Dingxi farmers was 910 yuan, or 72 percent of the per capita net income in the same year. A group of township and private enterprises have absorbed 200,000 surplus rural laborers in the area.

By the end of last year, all the townships, 99.9 percent of the villages and 87 percent of the poverty-stricken population in the Dingxi area have become well-fed.

Currently, Dingxi has planted 158,670 hectares of yam, accounting for nearly 50 percent of the provincial total and one-tenth of the national total, respectively. The land area of traditional Chinese medicine totals 56,000 hectares, of which plantation of angelic accounts for 70 percent of the national total.

Local officials said that Dingxi will be built into China’s biggest base for yam breeding, production and processing and the largest base in northwest China for medicinal materials production and processing, and flower planting.

(People’s Daily 06/28/2001)