Ginkgo Trees Bring Health and Wealth

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 18, 2002

Ginkgo Trees Bring Health and Wealth

Ginkgo trees are beautiful with fan-shaped leaves and yellow flowers. But beauty is not the only benefit you can get from them. They can also be used to make medicine. Therefore, planting ginkgo trees can be a very efficient way to get rich.

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A tradition of planting ginkgos

The Ginkgo tree, in Chinese is also called the Yinxinshu, or silver apricot tree. And Xuzhou has a long history of growing this kind of tree. According to the history records, ginkgos have been growing there since the Northern Wei Dynasty, some 1,500 years ago. Gangshangzhen, a town in Xuzhou, is located at the inter-junction of the grand cannel and the country's east-west trunk railway of Longhai. The town is famous for its ginkgo tree plantations. Zhuang Qing is the director of the town.

"Growing ginkgos is a Gangshangzhen tradition. It can be dated back to the Bei Wei dynasty. The oldest ginkgo tree is over 1,000 years old. Now, we have more than 14,000 ginkgo trees that are over 50 years old."

A means of getting rich

Though the favorable geological location of Xuzhou has boosted the development of the local economy, farmers only began to profit from their labors after they discovered the ginkgo's medicinal properties.

The leaves of the ginkgo contain a kind of element called ginkgo ketone that has proven to be very effective in curing heart disease and high blood pressure. Even though, many farmers like planting ginkgos, they never realized that they could be so lucrative. Kong Xiangshen was the exception. In 1994, he decided to grow ginkgo trees exclusively on his land. His parents and wife were strongly against the idea. But Kong Xiangshen went ahead.

"At that time, I thought that ginkgo trees could live several thousands of years. They're not like other trees that can only live a couple of hundred years. Ginkgo saplings sold well at that time. And I thought to myself that even if I couldn't sell them, I could leave them to the next generation."

Kong bought 500 kilogrammes of gingko fruits and planted them. One year later, he sold his saplings and pocketed more than 100,000 yuan. Later he contracted land in other provinces to grow gingko tree plantations. His business is booming now.

"Now I spend over 1,000 yuan every month on my mobile phone. Before I couldn't have made 1,000 yuan, even if I had worked for 10 years in the field. I didn't dare dream that one day I would have such a wonderful life."

Now many farmers in Xuzhou grow ginkgo trees. And many of their products are exported to North America, Europe and southeast Asian countries.

Some farmers have cultivated potted ginkgo trees and made a big fortune from them. Liang Chenlong is one of them.

"I am one of the sellers of the potted ginkgo trees. Now I have 1,500 potted trees. Some good ones can be sold at between 1,500 and 2,000 yuan."

Liang chenlong told us that his living standards had improved a lot since he went into the ginkgo business. He now lives in a two-storey house with an area of 400 square metres.

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