August is the harvest time of pepper; Tunggar villagers are busy picking peppers in Nang County, Nyingchi City, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. "This year's peppers grow well, which will be sold at a good price," says Lhamo, a local farmer holding a bag of newly picked peppers. 

In recent years, to broaden the channels for increasing people's income, Nang County has vigorously developed the characteristic planting industry dominated by pollution-free pepper, which has promoted the continuous optimization of the planting structure in the whole county and the improvement of the people's living standards.

"Previously, we mainly planted highland barley, wheat, radish, cabbage and potato, and had little interest in planting peppers," says Shado, deputy director of the Bureau of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry of Nang County, "To fully mobilize masses' enthusiasm for production, we took the lead in building the first pepper planting base in in Dro Village of Tunggar Town. At that time, there were 233 people from 57 households in the whole village, almost all of whom participated in the construction of pollution-free pepper planting base, covering an area of 0.149 km². "

In combination with the local situation and people's wills, Nang County focuses on large-area planting and pepper industry on the on the basis of previous planting. Up to now, planting area of pepper in the county has reached 3.663 km²; 2 pepper demonstration bases and 15 pepper planting bases have been built, which are distributed in 5 towns.

To ensure the high quality and high output of pepper planting, the county has held several training courses, invited professionals to give on-site lectures, and dispatched technicians to carry out the demonstration and promotion of technology, which have greatly improved farmers' scientific and technological level. "After training, everyone in our village is good at planting peppers now," Losang, Dro Village's Party branch secretary says happily.

Nang County has actively promoted soil and seed disinfection work to reduce incidence of pests and diseases to provide a good growing environment for pepper seedlings. This year, the county's pepper harvest amount has reached 2,250 tons, with the output value of 13.5 million yuan RMB, generating an income of 7.8095 million yuan RMB, which has led 3,825 farmers and herdsmen from 1,163 households to increase their average income by 2,041 yuan RMB.

In terms of market promotion, the county has created local pepper brand with the model of "company + planting base + cooperative + farmer", and established supply and marketing cooperation relationship with the Langdun Pepper Professional Cooperative.

Shado introduces that masses sell dry and fresh peppers to the cooperative; cooperative produces deeply processed products like paprika, chilli sauce, bean paste and other characteristic ones, which are sold well because of its pure taste.

Nowadays, Nang County's pepper planting industry has enriched people's lives and increased their income.