They debuted as e-commerce livestreamers and sold agricultural products like corn, cherries and edible fungus.

他们以电子商务直播的身份首次亮相，销售玉米、樱桃和食用菌等农产品。

Among the hundreds of products, caterpillar fungus and yak jerks are the most popular items, based on Alibaba stats.

The efforts include curing the white fungus disease on the coffee plants, donating basic necessities including huller machines, pulpers, sorting equipment and processing storage, in addition to finding sales channels home and abroad for local farmers.

Typical health foods such as caterpillar fungus and Ganoderma lucidum had high sales.

Yu, founder of private tutoring giant New Oriental Education & Technology, and his colleagues debuted as e-commerce livestreamers and sold－wait for it－farm products like corn, cherries and edible fungus.

Policy, innovative tech-inspired investments and ecological farming create magicIn Northwest China's Shaanxi province, famous for its rich coal resources, Miaowan, a township in Tongchuan city, is now better known as "Shiitake Mushroom Town" because the edible fungus business has transformed lives and society.

They bought breeding sticks for edible fungus and grew shiitake mushrooms at home.

"I plan to build a new base to grow edible fungus this year and expand an existing one," said Sun, who is now targeting 200 million yuan in total revenue this year.

In contrast, travelers from other regions come here for fungus.

Currently, Oriental Selection mainly sells books and agricultural products including corn, cherries and edible fungus.

Villager Liu Huafang is a grower of purplexa0Ganoderma lucidum— a medicinal fungus — in Dahe town.

Since 2019, he has planted the fungus in broadleaf forest.

According to the county's forestry and grassland bureau, Wuping county boasts around 300,000 mu of broadleaf forest that's fit for planting the fungus, for which only one tenth has been used and more is to be developed.

Black fungus production workshops in Zhongshan county offer jobs to locals and are prioritized for poor households, to allow them to earn a monthly salary of more than 2,000 yuan each.

"Besides soy and pea proteins that have been widely used to produce meat alternatives in China, fungus protein is also a high-quality ingredient, which can improve food taste and nutrition," said Yang Yongping, chairman of Shanghai Xuerong Biotechnology Co, Ltd. Xuerong, a leading edible fungus supplier in China with a history of over 20 years, has recently invested in the field of plant-based meat to produce fungus-based meat substitutes, making full use of its expertise in fungus production.

It will use fungus directly in products that taste like real meat, and it will also extract proteins from fungus to produce fungus-based meat substitutes.

"The meatless meat industry for us is a step further into the deep processing of edible fungus.

Located in the Qinling Mountains, Jinmi has emerged from poverty in recent years by developing the black fungus industry.

According to Zhang Pei, Zhashui's deputy county chief, sales of black fungus via livestreaming events during just one night equaled the county's total online sales of such products for four months.

During a tour of Zhashui county, Shaanxi province, on April 20, President Xi Jinping had a brief chat with a group of merchants who were using livestreaming to market muer, or "wood ear", a popular black fungus.

Data from Taobao, the e-commerce platform, showed that the shop recorded on average one order per second for the fungus on April 21.

Sensing huge opportunities in the bamboo fungus industry, he started a business and devoted himself to research and development.

During the Singles Day shopping gala on Nov 11 last year, his bamboo fungus was promoted and sold by livestreaming internet celebrities.

"A total of 600 to 700 boxes of bamboo fungus were sold that day alone, which was much higher than our average sales volume," said Gao.