#Poverty Alleviation# Mulberry brings fortune to Yunnan silk growers

On a steep hill, Yu Shengyi and his wife are busy picking fresh mulberry leaves which will be taken home to feed their silkworms. In two weeks, Yu will sell around 100 kilograms of silkworm cocoons and earn more than 4,500 yuan (about 680 U.S. dollars).

Yu, 34, is a farmer in Longchuan County in west Yunnan’s Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. The county is an ideal place to grow mulberry trees and breed silkworms due to its mild weather and abundant rainfall.

Yu's five-member family used to grow sugarcane on their mere one hectare of land, earning just 30,000 yuan a year, before deciding to raise silkworms.

In January 2015, Yu and other villagers started to grow mulberry trees and feed silkworms when the local government and a company jointly launched a mulberry plantation and sericulture development program in the county at the end of 2014.

Besides providing technical guidance, the company also signed purchase contracts with silk growers with a favorable price to guarantee stable incomes.  

Over the past three years, about 7,800 households in Dehong joined the mulberry plantation program and planted nearly 3,500 hectares of mulberry 

"Last year, we paid more than 13 million yuan for silkworm cocoons purchased from silkgrowers," said Zheng, founder and chairman of the company.

(Abridged from Xinhua)