Developing their kiwi fruit industry has helped villagers in counties around Liupanshui City, southwest China’s Guizhou Province escape from poverty.

The city’s fruit is among the best of its kind in China, boasting rich nutritional value and great flavor.

Since the city released policies to develop the industry in 2014, the fruit farming area has grown from the original 17,600 mu to 181,800 mu (12,120 hectares) by 2017.

The farms here create a yearly output value of about 789 million yuan (about $115.6 million), which has directly helped 22,054 impoverished people overcome poverty.

Developing the industry has not only made the local environment better, but helped the villagers become richer, an official with the local agricultural industrial park noted.

Wang Shunyou, a villager from Shuicheng County, explained that previously he could only save around 20,000 yuan per year as a migrant worker, but can now earn around 150,000 yuan per year by planting kiwi fruit trees.

Today, the city cooperates with over 20 e-commerce platforms and well-known enterprises such as Jingdong and Huawei, to sell its fruit products across China and to Canada and Thailand among other countries.