Zhishan honey peaches help local farmers escape poverty. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

Zhishan village in Zhangjiagang, a county-level city in East China's Jiangsu province, has helped its villagers escape poverty by setting up a farmers' cooperative to plant honey peaches, according to a local media report on Oct 13.

The village is situated in the southern part of Fenghuang town, and honey peach planting is the village's pillar industry. Fenghuang honey peaches were awarded a registration certificate as a National Geographical Indication Product and are known as the best honey peaches in Suzhou.

Over the past years, the village has rolled out an array of measures to promote large-scale planting and build up the brand of Zhishan honey peaches, helping the village become the core planting area of Fenghuang honey peaches in the country.

Currently, more than 580 households in the village are engaged in planting honey peaches, with the planting area exceeding 3,000 mu (200 hectares). Villagers can earn 15,000 yuan ($2,233.5) per mu a year.

Earlier this year, a farmers' cooperative was set up by the local government, and the cooperative helps integrate resources and encourages more poor households to grow honey peaches using standardized planting models.

Local authorities said that the cooperative has greatly increased the competitiveness of local products, generated enormous economic returns for local farmers and accelerated the integrated development of the primary and tertiary industries in Zhishan.