Tongzi County in southwest China's Guizhou Province is known as a "hometown of the square bamboo." In recent years, Tongzi took this advantage to develop square bamboo industry to accelerate economic growth.

Since 2020, Tongzi County has been growing more than 1 million mu (about 66,600 hectares) of square bamboo, with the production of bamboo shoots reaching 55,000 tons and the output value at 650 million yuan (about 90 million USD) in 2021.

In order to promote an integrated development of production, processing and sales, a bamboo shoot trading center has been launched for trial operation recently, injecting new momentum into local rural vitalization.

The bamboo shoot trading center has four fully automated production lines with processes including canned boiling, quick-freeze preservation, drying and cold chain.

The trading center will also boost innovative research and development of local bamboo shoot products, enhancing their competitiveness.

Now more than 42,000 local farmers' livelihoods rely on the bamboo shoot industry.