On Oct 7, villagers of Shuikou Village, Daping Township, Tongcheng County were picking purple perilla in a fine weather as a preparation work of selling them on the market.

There are traditions of growing and processing purple perilla in Tongcheng County. In recent years, Tongcheng County has built the purple perilla industry into a major industry of poverty alleviation, carrying out a management model of company + base + poor household, in order to guide the farmers to grow purple perilla by “orders” from companies. In the meantime, it has also spread the unified service of seed, seedling nurturing, training, guidance and order.

Currently, there are over 10000 mu of purple perilla planted according to orders, driving nearly thousands of poor households in 5 townships to buy a share of this base and work there, increasing income of 6000 yuan per household, which means that the purple perilla industry has become a new path for local farmers to supplement income and shake off poverty.