A beautiful township's "password for happiness"
In recent years, Medog Township in southwest China's Tibet has persevered in creating a beautiful calling card of "ecology, livability, health, charm, and happiness".
The industrial development of Medog Township is inseparable from its advantageous resource: tea. The township has been relying on tea as its main industry, striving also to promote the implementation of the "one village, one product" development strategy in order to further enhance the ability of the common people to increase their incomes. As of now, there are 1,736 mu (1 mu = 0.165 acres) of tea fields in Medog Township, of which 780 mu have already produced favorable results. The cumulative income of the population has reached more than 1.404 million yuan (0.203 million US dollars), and impoverished households have increased their incomes by 126,000 yuan (18,212.8 US dollars).
While vigorously developing their tea industry, Medog Township is also adopting an "enterprise plus farmer" model to actively cultivate specialty agricultural products such as honey pomelo, bananas, and to plant vegetables in their harvested rice paddy in winter when the field is idle. Since the beginning of this year, the area of Yadong Village's paddy field for planting vegetable in winter has been rapidly expanding from the original 54 mu to the current some 300 mu. The average household income here has reached more than 3,000 yuan (433.6 US dollars).
In addition, Medog Township relies on the Rinchenbon and Lagon scenic areas to actively build its eco-tourism industry and to turn ethnic villages into tourist attractions. At the same time, efforts have been made to encourage local people to make full use of their own resources, transforming empty homes into guesthouses, creating tourism goods from farmer's ethnic handicrafts, and providing quality services to tourists, thereby spreading the ethnic Menba and Lhoba folk culture at the same time.
In order to further tap into the potential abilities of the local population, Medog Township is encouraging local people to rely on their own skills to increase their incomes, providing extensive training programs in fields like ethnic Menba and Lhoba clothing, specialty handicrafts, and bamboo knitting.