Villagers develop tourism through Longshan Lily

Tourists gather in groups of three to five to take photos in a sea of lily flowers at a lily park of Jishou City.

“We have over 400 kinds of lilies from all over the world here, and there are flowers to admire all year round. Recently, as the weather gets well, we receive several hundreds of tourists every day and sell about 5,000 lilies,” said Yu Xiaolong, head of the base.

Longshan County is the largest tiger lily production area in China and is known as the “hometown of lilies”.

“Longshan Lily” is a national geographical indication protection product, with a perennial planting area of 100,000 mu (about 6,66.67 hectares) and an annual output of over 100,000 tons. However, due to factors such as a single product and market saturation, the development of Longshan Lily industry is also facing many difficulties.

“At first, people sold dried lily slices. As the market price fluctuated too much, farmers often made money in the first year and lost money in the following year.” Since 2014, Yu Xiaolong has decided to sell lily flowers, collected and cultivated 595 domestic and foreign lily germplasm resources, and cooperated to build bases in Changsha, Yueyang, Zhuzhou and other places to develop tourism.

In addition, Longshan County also actively improves the quality of the lily industry, carries out deep processing of lilies, strengthens brand building, and develops “Longshan Lily” into a brilliant brand in China.

In 2023, the total output value of the lily industry in Longshan County exceeded 3 billion yuan, with more than 150,000 farmers in the county engaged in it.

The Longshan Lily Seed Breeding Base, built in 2023, covers an area of over 500 mu (about 33.33 hectares). It can provide 500,000 virus-free lily tissue cultured seedlings, 3 million bulbs and 360 tons of high-quality varieties annually. This marks that Longshan County has completely solved the problem of lily detoxification, and has become a first-class base for the breeding and supply of virus-free lily varieties in China.

“Our company’s products such as lily powder, lily noodles, and lily tea have become popular throughout the country, just like Longshan’s beautiful natural scenery, becoming an important element to attract tourists from other places.” Zhang Guangzhao, head of Hunan Guole Agricultural Technology Company, introduced that the company has lily planting bases of over 3,000 mu (200 hectares) in Shipai Town, Longshan County, with a production value of over 100 million yuan in 2023.