N.China's Lingqiu County takes organic agriculture as effective way to promote rural development

Chehe Organic Community in Lingqiu County, Datong City, north China's Shanxi Province. (Photo by Jia Cunbiao)

BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Lingqiu County in north China's Shanxi Province has taken organic agriculture as an effective way to push forward the high-quality rural development.

Themed on “organic agriculture promotes high-quality rural development”, the ninth China Datong Chehe International Organic Agriculture Forum was held on Saturday in Datong City, north China's Shanxi Province .

Nearly 100 well-known experts and scholars from home and abroad gathered together both online and offline to discuss the future development direction of organic agriculture. 

The event was convened for the first time in 2014 and has been successfully held for eight consecutive sessions.

Ai Lingyu, deputy secretary of the CPC Datong Municipal Committee said at the opening ceremony of the forum that it is necessary to give full play to the forum’s platform advantage, and constantly optimize the organic agricultural production system, policy system and marketing system in a bid to let "Datong organic food" shine brighter all over the country and gain a foothold in the overseas market.

Since 2013, Lingqiu County in Datong City has explored a new way of agricultural transformation and development and took organic agriculture as the basic task and development goal.

Meanwhile, Lingqiu has also adopted a development mode featuring the combination of organic agriculture, beautiful countryside, and eco-tourism. It has built six communities with the organic agriculture as the mainstay.

As the first village-level organic agriculture model in Lingqiu,Chehe Organic Community saw the per capita income increase from 2,300 yuan in 2013 to 21,500 yuan in 2020.

After nearly a decade of development, Lingqiu County boasts an organic agricultural production area of nearly 100,000 mu (about 66.67 square kilometers), 54 certified organic products, and more than 30 organic agricultural production businesses. 

Experts at the forum also believed that organic agriculture can play a positive role in solving food safety problems, steadily increasing rural income levels,as well as improving ecological environment security.(Edited by Yang Yifan with Xinhua Silk Road, yangyifan@xinhua.org)