Model farmer Gong Maotian revitalizes hills and lifts fruit farmers’ incomes in

Gong Maotian, a Shandong Provincial Model Worker, has dedicated over 30 years to three major undertakings on Zhangzi Gu Hill in Daigu Town, Mengyin County: turning barren hills green, optimizing fruit tree varieties and raising local farmers’income.

In 1990s, Gong resigned from a military factory and contracted the barren hill. With his wife, he carried soil, dug wells and built mountain roads manually for eight years, planting more than 20,000 trees and expanding green land on the rocky hill. His efforts drove large-scale afforestation across Mengyin, lifting the county’s forest coverage rate to 73%.

He traveled nationwide and overseas to introduce and optimize high-quality fruit varieties, overcoming natural disasters and technical failures to develop flat peach, almond and apricot strains suitable for Yimeng mountainous terrain. His improved Zhongyou No.4 flat peach has been widely promoted across Shandong and donated to rural areas in Sichuan, Guizhou and Ningxia, with over 200,000 saplings given to farmers nationwide.

Gong has held more than 600 agricultural training sessions attracting 300,000 participants. Under his influence, Mengyin has developed 803,000 mu of peach orchards, ranking first nationwide in planting area and output, earning the county the title “China's Capital of Honey Peaches”. His decades-long practice carries forward the Yimeng Spirit of hard work and innovation, offering a sustainable model for mountain ecological agriculture and rural prosperity.

Editor：韩蒙蒙