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Greening the desert yields huge profits
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herding has become a thing of the past for 58-year-old Guo Xinjun, as he now looks after the trees and bushes he grows, making the rounds for two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon.
Guo manages 9,700 mu (647 hectares) of vegetation along the edges of the Tengger and Ulan Buh deserts in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Guo lives in Alxa Left Banner in Alxa League Prefecture, which has three deserts. These deserts, including the Tengger that extends into neighboring Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Gansu Province, stretch for 90,000 square kilometers in total.
Before the 1990s, sand dunes surrounded his home and land degradation was severe, Guo said.
“Sheep didn’t have enough grass to eat, which drove the price of lamb down. Life was tough.”
In 2000, the local government encouraged herders to plant saxauls, a drought-resistant shrub that anchors into sand with its roots, and is often grafted with herbs such as cistanche and cynomorium, two parasitic desert plants used in traditional Chinese medicine.
“The saxauls are treasures to us, as they can control sand erosion and help us earn money,” Guo said.
After seeing the first harvest he decided to give up herding. He sold his 300 sheep and 70 camels, and concentrated on planting saxauls and grafting cistanche.
Under a government policy introduced in 2004, each farmer who gives up herding and plants trees on their land receives a subsidy of 13,000 yuan (US$1,989) a year.
Over 100 billion yuan has been poured into the management and protection of desert vegetation over the past decade, with 16.5 billion yuan last year alone.
“I have earned more money from planting trees than from herding,” Guo said. Last year, his family harvested more than 3,000 kilograms of cistanche and made 170,000 yuan from selling it, he said. That compared to the 20,000 yuan earned from herding.
In 2010, Guo established a cooperative with 43 local households, inspiring more people to follow him in greening the desert.
So far, over 20,000 local farmers and herders have joined the industry, and about 40 percent of their net income comes from planting trees.
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