Communities sprawled across the mountains in Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in Southwest China have long struggled to eke out a living from the sheer and craggy landscape.

The fragile karst highlands are strewn with rock and weeds, stricken with natural hazard, and stubborn to produce any high yielding crop.

Chama town in Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in Southwest China is a land of stone and rock. [Photo by Li Fang/Xinhua]

However, villagers living upon the stony slopes have turned their hand to raising one thing that actually thrives in such an inhospitable environment – goats.

Strong of hoof, nimble and sure-footed, goats are able to navigate the tricky environment at the cliff's edge with relative ease, and provided villagers with an opportunity to raise them for trade to increase local incomes.  

Planting corn is another way that people living on the steep slopes can supplement their incomes. [Photo by Li Fang/Xinhua]

"With a landscapes densely covered with rocks and stones, not much grows, but we can raise goats and feed them with grass and weeds," said Yuan Li, chief of Chama town of Qinglong county.

Such have communities in the region taken to raising goats, that Qinglong goats have earned themselves a reputation for being of good and healthy quality. The county has a current population of more than half a million goats.