Newly developed industries like flower growing, online retailing and village tourism are helping Chinese farmers make a fortune.
"I am earning much more by growing flowers than working for others in cities," said Yan Wanyu, a farmer who owns a flower bed of about two mu (0.13 hectares) in Yuping Village within the jurisdiction of Shabu Town in the city of Lingyi in east Shandong Province.
Yan said he earns an annual income of no less than 50,000 yuan (about 7,690 U.S. dollars) by growing African daisy.
The planting area of African daisy in Yuping Village has topped 70 mu, 17.5 percent of the village's total farming land, said Yan.
And people want to plant more since the flower is selling well, he said.
There are nearly 20,000 flower growers in Linyi City, making a total annual income of 300 million yuan last year, Yan said.
Similarly, new industries like online retailing are helping residents of Qingyanliu Village in Yiwu City, east China's Zhejiang Province, to become relatively well-off.
For many of Qingyanliu's residents, their work heats up at dusk. As afternoon creeps into evening, delivery company trucks and vans pull up outside each house and start loading the thousands of packages.
During the daytime, the empty streets reverberate with the screech of sticky tape being yanked off its roll as workers package goods.
In the basement of Wu Licai's house, four workers nimbly sort, pack and load a mass of boxes. Everyday, about 700 neatly wrapped parcels are sent from this village to Wu's customers across China -- after having been bought and sold on Taobao, China's biggest online retailer.
Wu is among the 1,800 Taobao traders in Qingyanliu who buy products in nearby markets and sell them online.
During the day, the villagers sit in front of their computers to receive the online orders. At dusk, the seemingly deserted village begins to buzz with activity.
Known as China's No. 1 e-commerce village, Qingyanliu has produced 10 percent of Taobao's "Golden Crown" stores -- that is, the stores which have made over 500,000 transactions. In 2009, Qingyanliu villagers pocketed 800 million yuan from their online sales.
Chinese farmers are starting novel enterprises which differ from traditional farming. These new businesses are helping integrate the city with the countryside, according to a blue book on urban and rural development published in March by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
More and more Chinese peasants are opening shops, starting enterprises and operating village tourism businesses under the central government's "scientific development and restructuring" drive, according to the CASS.
