(Yicai Global) June 24 -- In July 1921, the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China was secretly held in Shanghai. Halted due to force majeure, the meeting reconvened aboard a boat on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. After the delegates passed the first program and resolution, and elected the party's leading organ, the Central Bureau, the CPC was born.

For the past 100 years, the pioneering spirit of Jiaxing’s people has led the local economy into the fast lane of sustainable development.

Average per capita disposable income among its rural residents was CNY39,801 (USD6,150) last year, ranking Jiaxing first in Zhejiang for the 17th consecutive year. In addition, the local government used just over 78 percent of the more than CNY100 billion (USD15.5 billion) of its fiscal revenue to improve the livelihoods of the local people.

Xu Guochu, who has been party secretary of the village of Changxiao for nearly 30 years, has seen China’s rural revitalization first hand. Xu’s generation used sickles to harvest rice when they were young, the 60-year-old told Yicai Global. Now they have fully automated harvesters.

The living conditions of farmers have also seen huge improvement, Xu added. The roads are now asphalted and multi-story residential buildings replaced bungalows in the 1980s and early 1990s, with a second renovation already underway.

A third of the roughly 1,000 households in Changxiao lived off pig farming in 2013. Two years later, the village began to explore a new industry. Combining photovoltaic power generation with agricultural production, they switched from the uncertainties and polluted environment of hog breeding to the sustainable cultivation of edible mushrooms. That year alone, mushroom growing generated CNY15 million (USD2.3 million).

“Growing mushrooms has good economic and environmental benefits,” Xu said. “Not only do the farmers who rent the greenhouse make money, but the elderly who come here to work can also earn CNY3,000 to CNY3,500 (USD460 to USD540) a month.”

The village initially borrowed land from farmers for about CNY12,000 (USD1,850) per hectare, and then invested around CNY9 million to build a greenhouse and other agricultural infrastructure. The land and its facilities are now rented to growers for CNY120,000 (USD18,540) a hectare.

The greenhouse spreads over nearly 7 hectares, and it is covered with more than 18,000 of Zhejiang Jinko Solar’s photovoltaic units, which can generate 5.5 million kilowatt-hours each year.

According to Xu’s calculations, households can earn up to CNY200,000 a year from just six months of labor cultivating edible mushrooms, against CNY10,000 from pig farming.

Editors: Liao Shumin, Futura Costaglione