Yongfu village in Longyan city, East China's Fujian province helps its villagers escape poverty by setting up a farmer cooperative to plant flowers and seedling trees. [Photo by Hu Meidong/chinadaily.com.cn]

Yongfu village in Longyan city, East China's Fujian province has helped its villagers escape poverty by setting up a farmer cooperative to plant flower and seedling trees, according to a local media report on Sept 22.

The farmer cooperative was established in 2013 and currently has more than 50 species of flowers and seedling trees, according to Chen Qiwen, manager of a local horticultural company.

Located in Xishan village, Yongfu town, the cooperative has 163 members and occupies an area of 2,100 mu (140 hectares), including a 3,000-square-meter intelligent greenhouse which provides a stable temperature and humidity level for the growth of different flowers in different seasons.

The cooperative helps integrate resources and encourages more poor households to grow flowers and seedling trees using standardized planting models. The cooperative has greatly increased the competitiveness of local products and generated enormous economic returns for local farmers, and has accelerated the integrated development of the primary and tertiary industries in Yongfu.

According to statistics, the annual per capita net income of cooperative members increased from about 7,000 yuan ($1,028.3) in 2011 to over 13,000 yuan in 2015, and the living standards of local residents have improved significantly, with a total of 21 households having relocated to new modern houses.

Chen Bin, town chief of Yongfu, said that the planting area of flowers totaled more than 20,000 mu this year, and the per capita net income of flower growers reached 19,000 yuan in 2019.