Backwater town in Fujian turns tea industry digital

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02:29

The Chinese government has vowed to eradicate poverty by 2020, and one of the major battlefields in this quest is southeast China's Fujian Province.

Many of the province's rural areas are very remote and cut off from the outside world because of lack of adequate infrastructure. However, some villages have been looking to sidestep this inconvenience by embracing the country's digital economy.

Isolated by high mountains and deep valleys, the town of Xiadang was once dubbed the "Siberia of Shouning County".

Xiadang town in Fujian Province has developed its tea industry thanks to digital economy. /CGTN Photo

However, through its customized tea garden program, the villagers and their thousands of clients across China are just one click away from each other.

And through dozens of networked cameras, customers can monitor the whole process of tea production over their phones from plantation to packaging.

"We produce tea twice a year, in the spring and fall. Customers feel more secure as they can watch the whole production process in real time. So the quality of our tea can be guaranteed. Once a client called me over the phone because he found I was smoking around the factory gate. So I won't do that again," said local villager Wang Mingjiang.

Wang's family was glad to see the price of their tea leaves surge last year, resulting in their income being doubled. Wang said he owes his good life to hard work, noting that he could work the whole year in the early stages.

So what happened to bring about this change?

Xiadang town's tea brand "Taste of Countryside" combines online selling and offline shops across villages in southeast China's Fujian Province. /Photo provided to CGTN

In 2014, Xiadang established a unique brand named "the taste of countryside" to promote its tea industry. Both its management team and the local villagers became shareholders.

"In the past, the villagers sold their own agricultural products at a very low price. They were not very open-minded at the same time. That's why we, the leadership, initiated a company, and separated the marketing from production," said Wang Mingzu, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) branch Xiadang Village.

For 20,000 yuan (3,000 US dollars), customers can rent a section of the plantation for five years. Each year, customers gain 50 kilograms of tea from it.

So far, half of the 40-hectare estate has been apportioned to enterprises from all over China. And now, these transactions can be done within a matter of seconds online.

Staff of the "Taste of Countryside" e-commerce site shows how to navigate their online store in Xiadang Town, Fujian, May 24, 2018. /Photo provided to CGTN

"Most of our e-commerce team are college graduates who chose to return home. Besides our online store on WeChat, we are currently working to create shops in more platforms, including JD.com and Taobao. In the future, we hope to get more villagers and their products involved in our online platforms," said Fan Chunyun, general manager at the e-commerce branch of "Taste of Countryside."

Because of the digital economy, being isolated geographically is no longer a problem. Officials say all the villagers could be lifted out of poverty by the end of the year.