GI branding boosts produce sales, raises living standards

Reducing poverty

The rise in sales of both the peaches and crawfish that resulted from successful registration as national GI products has helped lift local people out of poverty.

Tan said 8,256 families are involved in Yanling's yellow peach industry, which produces 51,000 tons of the fruit every year. So far, the industry has lifted more than 4,700 families out of poverty, with each earning an average of 8,800 yuan ($1,314) per annum.

In Junshan, 201 of the 2,102 households classified as impoverished have been lifted out of poverty since members started working in the sector, Zhou said.

Before he started raising crawfish, Bai Hao, a farmer in Junshan's Wuyi village, grew vegetables, earning 3,000 to 4,000 yuan a year.

That was all the 50-year-old had to support his wife, who is unable to work because of severe rheumatoid arthritis, and pay her medical bills.

Life was difficult and the family was listed as impoverished in 2014.

Last year, noting the growth potential if the crawfish obtained a national GI label, village officials recommended that Bai should start breeding the popular delicacy.

Using a 50,000 yuan interest-free loan from the district government, he rented 27 hectares of paddy fields to breed crawfish.

The move proved successful; after Junshan crawfish gained national GI status in March, demand surged.

In summer, the harvest season for the delicacy, there were so many crawfish that Bai had to hire three people to help him catch them. He earned more than 100,000 yuan from his fields.