It is said that in ancient times, a strong man named Zhou Bo killed the fierce beast that did evil. People built the God Zhou Temple in memory of him, commonly known as the Pixiu Temple, because of which the town area flourished, hence its name developed into Miaozhen Town (which means Temple Town).

In the long history of development, Miaozhen Town has accumulated unique advantages of health care resources. There are the four-color specialties of "red, yellow, green and purple", characteristic flower industries such as saffron and Anthurium, and fun home stay experiences such as Xiangduo Happy Farm, Oriental G20 Huadao Suji, West Bank Oxygen Bar and so on.

Today's Miaozhen Town has ushered in new opportunities under the Rural Revitalization Strategy. How to seize the opportunity to build a "Health Care Town" full of happiness? Miaozhen Town is practicing step by step.

New Picture of Beautiful Countryside

In recent years, Miaozhen Town has paid close attention to the construction of rural revitalization demonstration villages, greatly improving its overall appearance.

Yongle Village successfully established the first rural revitalization demonstration village in Miaozhen Town in 2019. Talking about the changes before and after the establishment, Wang Zhenggang, the first Secretary of Yongle Village, said in the live broadcast that the most intuitive thing is the changes in hardware facilities and village appearance. Through the construction of the demonstration village, the rural roads, vegetable, fruit and flower gardens and rivers, including the front and back of houses of villagers, have become clean and orderly.

Starting with the construction of a beautiful and livable village, Hezhong village took contiguous forests and happy farm as resource advantages, made full use of 2800 mu of public welfare forest, ecological forest and other forest resources, and took "Forest Distance · Forest Breathing" as the theme to build 700 mu of open leisure forest land. By constructing a green environment, the living environment of Hezhong Village has been further improved.

Lu Fei, Mayor of Miaozhen Town, said that at present, Yongle Village and Hezhong Village in Miaozhen Town have successfully established the municipal level rural revitalization demonstration villages, and Zhendong Village and Lianyi Village have been successfully included in the list of municipal and district level rural revitalization demonstration villages. Miaozhen Town will cluster the demonstration villages into lines to focus on creating a Huahong area.

Industry Paves Way to Prosperity

Rural Revitalization is not only the improvement of the environment, but also the support of industry. Miaozhen Town makes full use of its own characteristic industries and resources, develops the health care industry chain, and enables villagers to achieve common prosperity.

Saffron, a precious medicinal material known as "red gold" with high medicinal value, is the characteristic industry of Miaozhen Town. Yongle Village in Miaozhen Town has five large-scale professional cooperatives for saffron planting, with more than 500 villagers planting saffron. The planting area of saffron in the whole village is more than 700 mu, with an annual output of more than 800 grams of dry filaments per mu. In recent years, Yongle Village has been extending its industrial chain, successfully developing the derivatives such as saffron mask, saffron essential oil, scent of red flowers, saffron old wine, and so on, to improve the added value of saffron industry. Yongle Village has gradually expanded and strengthened the characteristic industry of saffron, making the "prosperous flower" of saffron blooms be planted in the whole village.

Moreover, Miaozhen Town has introduced two state-owned enterprises, Shanghai medicinal materials company and Oriental International (Holdings) Co., Ltd., further developing saffron planting industry and agricultural tourism industry. It gave full play to the resource advantages of Shanghai Medicinal Materials Company, guided and supported two saffron backbone professional cooperatives in Yongle Village, formed a business model of leading enterprises + cooperatives + farmers, and help drive the sustainable development of more than 600 saffron growers in the village. The Oriental G20 Huadao Suji in operation has not only benefited the villagers from house rent, revitalized the assets of the village collective, but also enabled the villagers to achieve employment at the door of their homes.

Flower Economy Adds Impetus

In terms of flower economy, Miaozhen Town mainly develops three flower industries - saffron, Aanthurium, tulip.

Anthurium is mainly planted in Yingmiao Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative in Heping Village (Anthurium Base). Founded in 2008, the cooperative covers an area of 30,000 square meters. It has developed into one of the largest agricultural industrialization cooperatives integrating flower cultivation, picking, packaging, transportation and sales on Chongming Island. It is one of the largest and modern flower production bases of farmers' cooperatives in east China. The fresh cut flowers of Anthurium cultivated by it are rich in varieties and excellent in quality. They have won many awards in grand gatherings at home and abroad and have also been made into a commemorative flower basket and presented in front of the monument to the people's heroes on the Martyrs' Memorial Day. At present, the base is also stepping up the cultivation of new varieties. According to the idea of integrated development of agriculture and tourism, the base has launched a flower fairy paradise integrating characteristic plant cultivation, flower science popularization, multi meat creative basin formation, flower arrangement art, parent-child flower tourism, horticultural training and leisure experience.

Tulip brand mainly refers to the tourism festival brand cooperated by Miaozhen Town and Oriental International Shanghai Flower Co., Ltd. Since 2020, Miaozhen Town has been holding the golden autumn Tulip Garden Festival in October every year. During the Garden Festival, citizens and tourists can see hundreds of thousands or even millions of out of season tulips competing in full bloom, very spectacular.

Referring to the future development orientation, Lu Fei said in the live broadcast that according to the functional orientation of characteristic agricultural planting and forest leisure tourism center town, a new development pattern of "one core and four areas" has been preliminarily constructed, that is, the core area of township health care culture based on traditional Chinese medicine industry such as Chongming Branch of Yueyang Hospital, the fashionable health preservation area based on various forests, Oriental International Flower Garden and other rich water, forest and flower resources, the zen culture area based on Wuwei Temple and Wuwei Academy, the modern agricultural area based on Lankuaikei Modern Agriculture, Biying Agricultural Technology Company and Oriental International Flower Garden and the agricultural tourism leisure area based on rural revitalization demonstration villages including Hezhong Village, Yongle Village, Zhendong Village and characteristic agricultural bases including Huahai Pastoral.

Miaozhen Town, through the vicissitudes of wind and rain, is now full of vitality, and the future can be expected. On this fertile land, hardworking and wise Miaozhen people shed sweat and sow hope. I believe that in the near future, a more livable "Health Care Town" will appear.