For decades, hundreds of millions of people have left rural areas in pursuit of opportunities in urban areas or other regions, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has estimated that by the end of 2025, approximately 15 million of them had returned to their hometowns to start businesses. Among them is 32-year-old Tsomo, Deputy General Manager of the Red Sun Technology Demonstration Family Farm in Nyingchi City, Xizang Autonomous Region.
Branding family farm products
After graduating in 2018 from the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, Tsomo returned to her home city of Nyingchi. Born and raised in Nyingchi’s Mainling County, Tsomo was lucky enough to secure a good job in neighboring Nangxian County with the State Grid Corp. of China. The job was well-paying, respectable and with a stable future, but none of these satisfied the young woman, who had always held dreams of entrepreneurship.
In late 2019, she made the bold decision to leave her stable job and return to her hometown in Mainling to try starting up her own business. During that period, she helped growing ganoderma, medicinal fungi, during the day on her family farm, and at night, she immersed herself in books on entrepreneurship, trying to find a new way forward.
In one of the following years, the prices offered by middlemen for ganoderma were particularly low and the family barely made any profit. Lying awake at night, thinking about the situation, a bold idea sparked in her: Why not cut out the middlemen and sell the ganoderma themselves?
Through relentless effort, Tsomo established long-term partnerships with several purchasing companies. However, the farm’s ganoderma still did not have a brand or decent packaging. “When we first went to an exhibition, we could only display them in baskets, present them as raw agricultural products,” Tsomo told Xizang Business newspaper.
Tsomo knew that branding was crucial for expanding the reach of her products. She searched online for designers and incorporated unique Tibetan cultural elements in her packaging. She printed a cartoon figure dressed in traditional local Gongbu clothing on the packaging and registered the copyright. She named the brand with a homophone for “Gongbu,” the ancient name of her hometown Nyingchi. Gongbu culture is one of Xizang’s ethnic cultures. As a result, the brand’s image won consumer favor.
In 2022, Tsomo recognized the tremendous potential of online sales and began exploring new sales models. She created a series of short videos highlighting the nutritional value and health benefits of ganoderma and also tried livestreaming.
However, her livestreaming attempts were not immediately successful. “I remember the first time I livestreamed, I spoke for over an hour, but there were very few viewers. Some people watched for a while but quickly left because they weren’t interested. I felt awful,” Tsomo recalled.
She soon changed her approach, showing the entire process of growing and harvesting ganoderma, inviting her viewers to take a “virtual tour” of the farm. With the snow-capped mountains and forests of Nyingchi as the backdrop, her livestreams began attracting more viewers. Viewers left positive comments and began placing orders. As a result, Tsomo’s online sales grew.
At the same time, Tsomo continued improving the quality of her family farm’s products. The farm mechanized its irrigation and harvesting, greatly improving efficiency. Also, the farm set strict standards for harvesting, drying and processing the ganoderma. In 2023, the farm was approved as a national standardization demonstration area for ganoderma cultivation in Nyingchi, boosting its brand influence. In 2024, it was named a model family farm by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
A village in Gongbo’gyamda County in Nyingchi City, Xizang Autonomous Region, on July 20, 2023 (XINHUA)
Common prosperity
As the farm continued to expand, Tsomo developed a greater ambition: engaging more villagers and bringing common prosperity to her hometown. Her family decided to offer free training to villagers from seven nearby villages on how to grow ganoderma. They provided free spawn and free professional advice, then purchased the ganoderma from the villagers. As a result, the villagers no longer had to leave home to work, and could increase their incomes right in their own villages.
Since 2019, the farm has purchased 7.13 million yuan ($1.02 million) worth of ganoderma from other villagers. Additionally, the farm has implemented a profit-sharing plan, providing dividends to villagers every year. In 2024, the dividend amount reached 950,000 yuan ($136,908), with another 2.2 million yuan ($317,050) paid out in wages. Touched by Tsomo’s stories, three local university graduates also returned to their hometowns and joined the farm.
Today, the farm has evolved from a single ganoderma cultivation farm to a comprehensive agricultural enterprise integrating breeding, growing, processing and sales. The farm manages seven semi-wild growing bases for ganoderma, covering 35.5 hectares, with an annual output value of over 10.5 million yuan ($1.5 million). It has become a benchmark for the under-forest economy in Nyingchi.
“To further expand our market, we plan to develop products like ganoderma bagged tea, beverage powders and skincare masks that are popular with young people,” Tsomo said.
From January 30 to February 3, the Xizang Autonomous Regional Two Sessions were held in Lhasa. In her role as a member of the Xizang Autonomous Regional Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Tsomo’s proposals mainly focus on rural revitalization. In her proposals, she recommends strengthening the practical training of rural personnel and conducting targeted skills training in agriculture, animal husbandry, agricultural product processing and e-commerce to help farmers and herders acquire valuable skills and improve their employment and entrepreneurship abilities.
“By continuously enhancing the ganoderma growing industry and improving mechanisms that link farmers with the industry, more people from all ethnic groups will be able to share in the benefits of the development of the under-forest economy,” Tsomo said.–The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
