NANCHANG, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Officials from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations praised China's coordinated efforts to enhance the rural economy while conserving the environment during their just-concluded field tour in the countryside of east China's Jiangxi Province.
From Nov. 17 to 23, officials from international organizations, including the FAO, alongside Chinese experts, participated in a field trip to Jiangxi to explore the coordinated development of ecological conservation and rural revitalization.
In Pohu Village of Yongxiu County in the city of Jiujiang, the delegation visited a wetland sewage treatment system, which plays a crucial role in protecting the ecology of Poyang Lake -- China's biggest freshwater lake and the largest wintering ground for migratory birds in Asia.
The system at Poyang Lake features a filter bed composed of soil, gravel and plants, which effectively removes pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from discharged household sewage through physical, chemical and microbial processes.
"There are a lot of pollution problems when it comes to people living close to protected areas. So I think this is a good natural method for people to avoid pollution of the wetlands," remarked Ronnie Brathwaite, FAO senior agriculture officer. "It is something that can be scaled up."
The sewage treatment system was developed under a Global Environment Facility project on wetland protection in Jiangxi -- a joint initiative of the FAO and Jiangxi Province.
Thanks to the ecological conservation of Poyang Lake, bird-watching tourism along the shore of the lake began to flourish, bringing financial benefits to farmers. Fan Pingping, an owner of a tourist homestay business in Wucheng Township of Yongxiu County on the shore of Poyang Lake, is among them.
Her homestay now attracts a steady stream of tourists during bird-watching season. "I used to worry about how to make a living without fishing. Thanks to bird-watching tourism, my income has increased several times over," she said.
Poyang Lake hosts between 600,000 and 800,000 migratory birds each year, including 98 percent of the global population of Siberian cranes, 80 percent of the world's oriental white storks -- and a range of other rare bird species.
In Taihe County, in the city of Ji'an, the delegation met Huang Lili, a breeder of the geographically indicated Taihe black-bone chicken. The woman now raises nearly 2,000 black-bone chickens in her courtyard, which brings in an annual income of around 30,000 yuan (about 4,234 U.S. dollars). With this steady stream of income, Huang no longer has to leave her family behind to seek jobs in faraway coastal economic hubs.
Mohamed Manssouri, director of the FAO Investment Centre, noted that the model of "geographically indicated products + deep processing" provides farmers with a sustainable path to income growth.
Innovative agricultural practices also left a strong impression on the visiting delegates. These practices include installing solar-powered air-conditioned greenhouses and smart risk-management sheds for the production of local specialty mushrooms in Le'an County, in the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi, and eco-friendly breeding models such as rice-crayfish and rice-crab co-culture in Jishui County, of the city of Ji'an.
Brathwaite expressed admiration for the local government's investment in agricultural infrastructure, noting that the FAO is willing to collaborate, provide technical support and help farmers adopt new technologies.
"It is very interesting to get to know the approach to rural revitalization," Manssouri noted, having acquired first-hand knowledge of various measures adopted in Jiangxi's countryside.
"People used to rely mostly on farming, and today they are relying on farming, processing, e-commerce and tourism -- activities for people to have a better income. But at the same time, there is a focus on environmental conservation, and it's very unique," Manssouri added.
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