Rural revitalization has come into Foundation’s task since the beginning of 2022. After several months of researches, survey and on-site visits, the Foundation working together with agriculture experts, scholars, and local government as a joint effort implemented the pilot project in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province where is most famous for its navel oranges nationwide. The goal of this project is to help alleviate poverty and enhance local economy for villagers/farmers.

Foundation partners with a local farmers’ cooperative at Xinfeng County to implement this pilot project. It covers total of 1000 acres of land and plans to grow Newhall navel orange trees for half of the land to begin with. In addition, once the orchard is in full growth in the following years, the project will expand to combine agriculture with leisure and tourism to increase farmers’ income.

As such, the Foundation’s RR team launched Golden Orchard Program on March 16, 2023. As of now, the plantation has been completed with a total of approximately 20,600 navel orange trees covering an area of 412 acres. At present, the road construction and power installation are all in place. The team also adopts agrotechnology by integrating the irrigation and fertilization into one system to gain more efficiency.  

Since its inception, the project has employed a total of 128 local villagers/farmers for the entire operation, among which 70% of the workforce is mostly women and of ages above 50. The total working hours are 1,477 days, and the per capita pay is RMB140 per day. In the next few years, these farmers will follow up with the project in various phases.