Yakking about helping poorer districts

Yak meat from Shangri-La and Pu’er tea from Changning in Yunnan are some of the products on sale at a sustainable industry store which opened in Minhang District yesterday.

The shop, at 695 Qixin Road, part of the nationwide poverty alleviation program, aims to help Minhang’s sister districts in the remote regions of Xinjiang and Yunnan. 

“We hope to build a platform to showcase and sell high-quality agricultural products,” said Wu Bin, deputy director of Minhang government. 

He added it was a model of “precise poverty alleviation” combining both consumption and charity. To promote the opening, a three-day fair selling the sister districts’ agricultural products is being held in an open-air square outside the store.

Residents, authorities and companies have bought 41 million yuan (US$6 million) of products.

Duan Xing’en runs a dendrobe stem farm in Longling. “We know how to plant good dendrobe but we know little about promotion,” he said.

A local resident, who gave his name as Zhou, spent hundreds of yuan on dendrobe stem, walnut oil and red dates. “It’s really good that I can buy authentic and high-quality agricultural products locally,” he said.