Highland industries drive high-quality development in Xizang's county

LHASA — In a bustling workshop, dozens of women manually operate looms, with thumping sounds abounding. At one loom, Namdrin, wearing colorful homemade Tibetan garb, shows a colleague how to weave.

Namdrin, from Rinbung county, Xizang autonomous region, is an inheritor of Yar Ther, a 1,200-year-old Tibetan wool-weaving skill listed as a city-level item of intangible cultural heritage.

"Compared with ordinary Tibetan wool products, Yar Ther cloth is more delicate, and more lustrous under sunlight, which is warm in winter and cool in summer," said the 36-year-old, adding that a handmade scarf can be sold for 600 yuan ($86).

In 2013, she and her husband Tashi Dondrup, a former tailor, started a Yar Ther wool weaving cooperative, producing woolen monks' robes. Now, the cooperative has three workshops, producing 12 product types, such as Tibetan aprons, clothing and scarves. It has hired more than 200 locals as full-time and part-time weavers, tailors and other staff, generating annual sales revenue of around 15 million yuan in 2023.

Kelsang, a villager who lives nearby, has been a weaver in the workshop for three years, and now earns 160 yuan daily. "With this job at my doorstep, I can bring additional income without leaving my family unattended," said Kelsang, aged 30.

Located on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, known as the "roof of the world", Xizang has been fostering special highland industries based on its specialties, such as sheep, yak and barley products, driving the region's high-quality development and bringing more income to locals.

In Gyangze county, a major barley production base in the region, an automated processing line by Keyan Co has produced bread premixes made from modified barley flour — a technical breakthrough as traditional barley flour is unsuitable for making bread due to a lack of gluten. The premix helped Chinese bakers win an international baking award in Munich, Germany, in 2023, said Guo Wenhong, chairman of Keyan.

Guo said the barley is also made into canned porridge, noodles and dumplings, which are very popular among customers. He said the company will soon open two barley bakery shops in the county and Shanghai, respectively, and is optimistic about their market potential.

Hu Fawei, executive deputy head of the county government, said Gyangze now has three barley processing enterprises, including a barley beer producer, and the county government has been making efforts to develop industries to increase the added value of barley for farmers.

By the end of July, the county's GDP had expanded 6.8 percent year-on-year to 1.8 billion yuan this year.

According to a white paper issued in 2023, Xizang has built a large number of industrial bases for agriculture and animal husbandry adapted to local conditions, such as those used in the cultivation of high-quality highland barley, the production of edible oils, pollution-free vegetable planting, standardized dairy cattle scale farming, and Tibetan sheep and yak farming. In 2022, the total output value of farm and livestock products processing reached 6 billion yuan.

In a township in Sagya county, some 4,000 meters above sea level, the quinoa crop has been introduced from a plateau area in South America at a similar altitude. The experimental plantation area reached 167 hectares in 2023 and 667 hectares this year.

As a trial project jointly developed by the government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a quinoa processing company, the nutritious crop was grown in barren wasteland without taking up any barley farmland.

Shan Liming, general manager of the company that purchases the quinoa and processes it elsewhere into quinoa rice, noodles and other products, said that through further processing, the added value of the crop yield is expected to reach 50 million yuan this year.

Supported by the government, a processing line is being built in Sagya that is expected to become operational next year. In addition to the labor and machine leasing income from the quinoa fields, local farmers will be encouraged to grow quinoa in the future, earning at least five times the income from growing barley, Shan added.

Namgyal Lhadron, 68, Namdrin's mother who taught her Yar Ther wool weaving skills, is glad to see that the manually weaved clothing, which was once only affordable for nobility, is now popular among ordinary people, both young and old.

"I hope my daughter can continue to make efforts to pass on the skills and bring wealth to more people," she said.

Xinhua