Mushrooms help farmers to get rich in Pingquan, Hebei

Located at the junction of Hebei, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, as the birthplace of Liaohe River, one of the seven major rivers in China, Pingquan is a national civilized county, a National Garden County, and one of the greenest counties in North China. Good ecological environment has not only become the most attractive and valuable potential wealth of Pingquan, but also accelerated the development of the edible mushrooms industry in China. By the end of 2019, the production scale of edible mushrooms in Pingquan city has developed to 680 million bags, with an output of 600,000 tons, an output value of 6.2 billion yuan, and more than 120,000 employees.

Insist on government promoting and strengthen the industry. The edible mushrooms industry in Pingquan started in the late 1980s. Over the past 30 years, with the development concept of strengthening the county and enriching local people, Pingquan has taken good care of the industry enriching people and boosting employment, stuck to one plan to the end, doing it one by one, and working hard for a long time. Its comprehensive strength of edible mushrooms ranks first at county level in China, and has won more than 20 national awards such as the hometown of edible fungi in China.

Accelerate transformation and upgrading, and promote  sustainable development. Strengthen The Support Of Scientific And Technological Talents. Pingquan has built five scientific research platforms, including the national edible mushrooms research and development center, established four experimental bases with a total investment of 30 million yuan, and introduced 122 high-end talents including Zhang Jinxia, the national chief expert of edible fungi, to engage in various aspects of edible fungi research, so as to ensure sufficient innovation ability. In order to ensure the development of the industry, the county-level edible mushrooms industry service bureau was established, and edible mushrooms offices were set up in each township. There were more than 70 civil servants and more than 1000 professional and technical personnel of edible fungi in the county, which has promoted the development of edible fungi industry in more than 20 cities and counties in 6 provinces and autonomous regions. Pingquan has obtained 11 provincial scientific research achievements, 2 independently developed varieties recognized by the state, and integrated model technology of annual cultivation of edible mushrooms ,which has filled in the domestic blank. Strengthen Leading Power. Efforts should be made to improve the ability of deep processing of products and strengthen the leading power of industrial development. At present, there are more than 10 leading provincial enterprises and 4 municipal ones, 1 multinational enterprise , producing more than 100 kinds of deep processing products such as lentinan dropping pills with a  capacity of more than 1 million tons. Strengthen The Construction Of Circulation Chain. Pingquan has built a dual cycle economic system of "edible fungi-waste mushroom -protein feed-livestock and poultry breeding-fecal fertilizer-edible mushrooms raw materials" internally, and "joint production of electricity and fertilizer with mushroom charcoal"  externally, based on cross-industry circular economy chain with apricot, activated carbon, edible fungi and organic fertilizer, which has become a national "model project".

Strengthen the construction of market system and expand the influence of industrial products. Persist in promoting brand building and cultural coordination. Focusing on building the brand with culture, Pingquan has built the "China's first, world-class" Chinese Mushroom Culture Expo Center, and held three sessions of northern China mushroom trade conference, the first Chinese mushroom culture festival and other national industry events, leading to the wide spread of Pingquan edible mushrooms brand, greatly enhancing the brand influence of "China mushroom town". Persist in the simultaneous implementation of the professional market and the Internet plus. Pingquan has invested in the construction of the largest edible mushrooms trading market in northern China, guided the mushroom industry to carry out e-commerce on JD, Tmall and other large-scale e-commerce platforms, trained more than 3,000 mushroom brokers of various types, built more than 100 purchase and sales points, forming a comprehensive market network covering online and offline, and became the national edible mushrooms price formation center and the only county with pricing advantage. Persist in attaching equal importance to domestic market and export. Pingquan must firmly grasp the initiative of the domestic market, and vigorously expand the overseas market. The annual export volume of the edible mushrooms products in the county reaches more than 20 million US dollars, and exported to 16 countries and 60 large and medium-sized cities along the Belt and Road initiative.

Innovate the industrial poverty alleviation model and accurately promote poverty. In response to the four major problems of poverty-stricken households, such as lack of funds, lack of technology, fear of risks and inconvenience to leave home，Pingquan, relying on the edible mushrooms industry with the first comprehensive strength at county level in China, has explored the "three zeros" precise poverty alleviation model, effectively solving the poverty alleviation problems."Zero cost" means using the financing platform of "government bank enterprise household insurance", integrating policy funds by the government and loan funds provided by financial departments as the principal of the park for poor households to invest in the industry without paying a cent."Zero distance" to jobs, Employment at "zero distance", that is, the modern agricultural industrial park and the relocation community for poverty alleviation and relocation are carried out, or leading enterprises and cooperatives are led to build industrial parks around poverty-stricken villages, so that the people can participate in the industrial development nearby. Pay attention to the simultaneous relocation of industrial parks and communities to the central village, so that the people can not only get rid of poverty and become rich, but also enjoy good production and living conditions. At present, the county has built more than 100 "three zero" targeted poverty alleviation parks of more than 100 mu, directly absorbing more than 8,000 poor households to settle in, and the average annual income of each household reaches more than 40,000 yuan.