Anren Ganfenshe originated from the great achievements of local villagers offering sacrifices to Shen Nong, god of agriculture. “Fen” refers to the spring equinox, and “She” refers to the market day. It has a history of over 1,000 years and made the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016.

 

 

Known as the medicine capital of southern China, Anren county has a long tradition of planting herbs and eating tonic diet. Stewed pork trotters with herbs is a must-eaten tonic dish on the day of Ganfenshe.

 

 

Villagers of Shichong village in Anren county plant various medicinal herbs in their yards. They plant golden chrysanthemums after harvesting rapeseed and sell them to various places. 

 

 

In recent years, the county government has focused on building a medicinal city, a strong agricultural county, a new manufacturing area and a benevolent Anren county.

 

It has fully tapped into the Shennong Culture, focused on fructus aurantii, Gang Mei, polygonatum sibiricum and Mesona chinensis Benth, created the geographical indication for Bai Zhi (Angelicae Dahuricae Radix), and developed understory medicinal varieties.

 

 

As of now, the planting area of Anren Fructus Aurantii has reached 120,000 mu (8,000 hectares), with 35 large-scale bases. The planting area of traditional Chinese medicine in courtyards and forests grows by 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares) annually.

 

 

By 2025, the county is expected to add more than 5 breeding bases for high-quality Chinese medicinal materials, build more than 10 planting bases for Chinese medicinal materials, and add more than 6 traditional Chinese medicine enterprises. It will work to further create a new integrated business model of “medicine, culture and tourism” and contribute to Hunan’s effort to build a strong province of traditional Chinese medicine.

 

 

 

Chinese source: hunantoday