On October 20, in Huangdi Village, Chaoyang Town, Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County, Anshan City, beekeeper Wang Chunguo, whose family was registered as living under the poverty line, carrying a hive of honey bees, said to the reporter: "These are Chinese native bees. I started with one box of such bees, and now I've got twenty boxes." 

"The bee species (Apis cerana cerana) is unique to China. They don't travel with the nectar sources and thus can be reared at locations designated by the beekeepers," Xu Siming, an expert from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the reporter. "The bee species is small in size and feeds on the nectar of small flowers. The price of its honey can reach 400 yuan per kilogram, and a box of such bees is almost equivalent to the economic output of a cow." 

Huangdi Village was once a poor place. "Huangdi" in Chinese means the wasteland. There were 625 households in the village, and nearly one in six households were registered as living under the poverty line. Nowadays, the village has greatly changed. In addition to beekeeping, the village is also actively developing other “get-rich projects” such as growing edible fungi and Chinese medical herbs, and planting economic forests. The annual output value of the whole village reached 34.5 million yuan last year. 

Such a huge change, how did it happen? 

The change started 6 years ago. In August 2014, the Shenyang Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sent a scientific and technological poverty alleviation work team to Huangdi Village. Pi Yingmin served as Party secretary of the village. In November of the same year, Xu Siming, a senior engineer from IAE, was sent to the village, serving as the technical officer. In 2018, Song Weidong from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also joined the team as the deputy secretary of the village. The three people lived in the village and devoted all their efforts to the economic development of the village. 

Huangdi Village has a lot of oak trees growing naturally on the mountain. Before the arrival of the work team, half of the households in the village earned money by rearing silkworms. However, their income was not stable due to weather, forest pests, and market factors. As soon as the work team arrived the village, the first idea they thought of was to grow edible fungi because oak wood is the best base material for growing edible fungi. After deliberation, the village committee decided to introduce funds for the large-scale production of edible fungi. By the end of 2016, 100 mu (unit of area, equal to 0.0667 hectare) of standardized greenhouses for shiitake mushroom (Lentinus edodes) production were built, attracting investment of 1.98 million yuan. At the same time, a 240-square-meter cold storage room, a 150-square-meter drying room, and a 260-square-meter coarse processing room were constructed and put into use. The next year's income reached 2.6 million yuan!  

"There are 300 such greenhouses now, which created an annual income of nearly 10 million yuan. Many villagers own greenhouses and grow shiitake mushrooms by themselves, while some villagers work for others. People from households that registered as living under the poverty line have priority to get their jobs," Xu Siming told the reporter. 

"I work for mushroom farmers and was paid 80 yuan a day," said Ding Xiuyun, a housewife with disabled legs. "I work and earn money at home without going out of the village, which was hard to imagine in the past." In addition to working for other villagers, Ding Xiuyun's family also has income through rearing earthworms.  

"The soil for rearing earthworms is made of cow dung and the wastes of mushroom growing," Xu Siming said. "Rearing earthworms cannot only solve the secondary pollution problem brought by manure and the used fungus chaff, but also have good profits and broad application prospect. Through rearing earthworms, one can earn several thousand yuan on one mu of land per year."  

Apart from growing shiitake mushrooms and rearing earthworms, beekeeping is another "get-rich project" emerging in the village. In 2016, the work team listed beekeeping as a targeted poverty alleviation project. The work team provided hybrid bees and beekeeping skills to seven poor households free of charge. Now, each household increases income by at least 15,000 yuan per year.  

As early as 2015, the work team started to guide the villagers to develop economic forests, in particularly, growing peach trees intercropped with Chinese medical herbs. Up to now, Huangdi Village has planted 500 mu of fruit trees, 270 mu of Chinese medical herbs and 70 mu of wild vegetables. In addition, hybrid hazelnuts, blueberries, roses and other cash crops have been introduced and planted in the village. The "low investment and high returns" agricultural development model is changing the small mountain village. 

There is the largest waterfall scenic area of the province in Huangdi Village. It is said that the village is also planning to develop tourism, which will further increase the income of the villagers. 

Nowadays, the land of Huangdi Village is not the wasteland, and villagers are not worried about their basic living problems 

In the past six years, Huangdi Village has turned from a single industry village to a place with thriving industries, and the villagers have turned from being hopeless to being hopeful. In the process of economic and ecological harmonious development, science and technology play a vital role. 

The land and the resources are always there. However, guided by scientific outlook on development, through rational planning and comprehensive exploration and utilization of natural resources, Huangdi Village has formed an industrial chain and a virtuous circle, and has achieved great developments in economic, ecological and social aspects.