The lush diospyros armata bonsai in the courtyards of every household in Lixi Village, Jishou City, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture attract tourists. They purchase seedlings in the fields, watch villagers selling diospyros armata through livestreaming, and have a meal in a farmhouse.
Lixi Village mainly plants diospyros armata and is known as the “hometown of diospyros armata” in Hunan. More than 120 households in the village have created a unique courtyard landscape of diospyros armata, with a planting area of over 100 mu (about 6.67 hectares). In 2022, its sales revenue of the entire village reached over 15 million yuan, of which the online sales revenue was about 9.5 million yuan.
Xiangxi Prefecture has encouraged farmers to develop the “courtyard plus” model, and continued efforts to strengthen characteristic advantageous industries, to help families in rural areas to increase income. In 2023, 24,200 households developed a high-quality courtyard economy in Xiangxi Prefecture, achieving a courtyard economy income of 84.1262 million yuan and an average household income increase of over 34,00 yuan.
Lashui Village in Baojing County has led villagers to cultivate black fungus in their courtyards and signed agreements on minimum price purchase, technical services, worker employment, and dividends distribution to promote agricultural development through the “cooperative plus farmer” model, with an annual income increase of 4,300 yuan in average per household.
Shilan Town of Huayuan County has explored a courtyard economy model based on Miao embroidery, Miao clothing, and Miao silver jewelry. The “Let Mom Go Home” Miao embroidery project trained more than 1,900 embroidery women, with villagers increasing income of more than 14 million yuan.
The villagers of Zishengqiao Village near the Bamian Mountain Scenic Area in Longshan County have transformed their houses into homestay inns, grown vegetables, raised poultry, and built orchards in front of and behind the houses. A total of 20 homestay inns have been developed in the village, with an average annual income increase of about 60,000 yuan per household.
Xiangxi Prefecture has worked to develop characteristic planting and breeding industries like fruit trees, traditional Chinese medicinal herbals, and livestock in courtyards, and transformed empty land in front of and behind houses into orchards, vegetable gardens, and flower gardens.
Besides, it has also supported rural craftsmen to open family workshops to improve and expand the courtyard economy, and encouraged farmers to develop characteristic homestay inns and leisure farms to promote the integration of agricultural, cultural and tourism industries, as well as create a number of popular villages and courtyards.
