Amidst undulating mountains and misty clouds, patches of Forest and tea groves appear intermittently. It's hard to tell where the forest ends and the tea groves begin; only by following the songs of the tea pickers drifting from the woods can one find the tea groves. This is the Luoshuidong Villager Group in Yiwu Town, Mengla County.
Arriving at the tea groves, which are seamlessly integrated into the mountain forests, one can see villagers bustling about their work on the tea mountain everywhere. With Bamboo baskets slung around their waists, they deftly pluck tea leaves with both hands, gathering the tender shoots into the baskets at their sides.
The tea industry is a traditional mainstay of the Luoshuidong Villager Group and a key industry for rural revitalization. For generations, the villagers have planted, consumed, and traded tea, carefully protecting both the tea groves and the forests.
To revitalize the tea industry, the Yiwu Town Party Committee, government, and villager group officials brainstormed together, visiting each household to talk with the villagers, conducting thorough research, organizing field trips for villagers to learn from experiences in Guangdong, Beijing, and other places, inviting tea enterprise technicians to share their tea planting expertise, and introducing the villager group's tea brand to businesses. By adopting a strategy of going out, bringing in, and creating an attractive environment, they focused on building “one specialty per Village,” providing powerful support for the development of the tea industry. A wave of enthusiasm for tea cultivation swept through the entire village.
As of now, the Luoshuidong Villager Group has a total tea plantation area of over 2,000 mu, producing more than 140 tons annually. There is 1 farmer-run tea cooperative and 1 company, generating annual revenues of 2.74 million yuan; there are also 15 individual households engaged in tea cultivation and processing, with annual revenues totaling 2.23 million yuan; the average annual income per villager is over 60,000 yuan.
Talking about the new changes brought about by the tea industry, Huang Yongneng, head of the Luoshuidong Villager Group, happily said, “In 2010, I led the revival of the traditional folk handicraft Tea processing workshop. After its development, the tea processing workshop now earns more than 300,000 yuan annually.”
Under the impetus of the tea industry, the Luoshuidong Villager Group has embarked on the fast track to rural revitalization. Today, virtually every household in the group owns a car or a pickup truck. Ancient trees stand lush along the village outskirts, while ancient paths wind through the village. The farmyards are clean and tidy, and the village lanes crisscross in all directions. In the village activity center, elders sit together chatting and laughing, while children play freely… A new picture of ecological livability, thriving industries, and beautiful surroundings is slowly unfolding. (Dao Yuejun)