In Kare Town, Nagarze County, Shannan City, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, a grand industrial profit distribution ceremony was held, where 365,820 yuan of honey industry proceeds for the 2024-2025 period were distributed to beneficiary villagers one by one, greeting with thunderous applause at the scene. This substantial dividend is not only the fruitful achievement of the high-altitude beekeeping industry but also a vivid practice of Kare Town in implementing the rural revitalization strategyand promoting common prosperity.

Tsering Tobgye, secretary of the Party branch of Jiangre Village in Kare Town, sighed with emotion, "we never dared to imagine living a good life by beekeeping in such a high-altitude area. Now, relying on beekeeping, we can increase the village-level collective economic income by tens of thousands of yuan every year. Everyone's enthusiasm for starting businesses is growing stronger, and life is becoming more promising."

In the past, restricted by natural conditions such as high altitude and low temperature, Kare Town had weak infrastructure, a lack of characteristic industries, and narrow channels for farmers and herdsmen to increase their income, leading rural development to a bottleneck. To solve the problem of increasing people's income and activate the momentum of rural development, the Party committee and government of Kare Town based themselves on the local abundant wild nectar resources and actively explored a characteristic development path of transforming ecological advantages into economic advantages.

Yan Dengjin, a staff member of the Comprehensive Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Service Center of Kare Town, introduced, "through field research, we found that the vast alpine meadows, native shrubs and other vegetation in the town constitute a natural 'nectar treasure trove'. As long as we overcome the technical difficulties of high-altitude beekeeping, we can turn the ecological gifts into wealth for the masses to increase their income."

Before 2022, the beekeeping industry was a completely unfamiliar field for farmers and herdsmen in Kare Town. The masses had no technical support and were worried about no return after investment, so the beekeeping industry stagnated, becoming a major obstacle to local development.

Recalling the difficulties at that time, Karma Drolma, head of Kare Town, still remembers clearly, "high altitude, lack of technology, and scattered nectar sources—many people thought that beekeeping industry could not develop here." In response to this situation, Kare Town carefully selected Party members and backbones as well as young representatives from 6 villages to go out to learn systematic beekeeping techniques.

Kare Town also actively organized farmers to plant nectar plants around their courtyards and on vacant hillsides, laying a solid foundation for the development of the beekeeping industry. Technology is the core confidence for industrial development. Faced with the general concern of the masses of "daring not to raise bees and not knowing how to raise them", Kare Town took the initiative to build bridges, accurately connected with market resources, and invited 2 enterprise technical personnel to station in the town for a long time to carry out hands-on and face-to-face full-process technical training.

At the same time, to completely dispel the concerns of the masses, the company promised unified purchase, unified processing, and unified sales, forming a virtuous development cycle of "government support, enterprise drive, and mass participation", which greatly stimulated the masses' enthusiasm for beekeeping.

In just over three years, the beekeeping industry in Kare Town has achieved a leapfrog development from scratch and from weak to strong: the number of villages engaged in beekeeping in the town has expanded from 3 to 6, the scale of bee colonies has grown from 80 boxes to 550 boxes, the annual output of honey has exceeded 7,500 kilograms, and the cumulative income has exceeded 500,000 yuan. The beekeeping industry has become a characteristic industry of Kare Town in promoting rural revitalization and a new engine for farmers to increase their income and get rich.

Today, Kare Town has not only brewed the "sweet economy" but also explored a wealthy people's road in high-altitude areas where ecological protection and industrial development are promoted in coordination, and ethnic unity and common prosperity complement each other, further providing replicable and promotable practical experience for many towns in the region to promote industrial revitalization.

Karma Drolma said that standing at a new starting point of development, Kare Town will continue to adhere to the original aspiration of serving the people, further develop the beekeeping industry with stronger efforts and more practical measures, continuously improve the farmers' breeding technology level, expand online and offline market channels, promote the "sweet economy" towards large-scale, standardized, and branded development, and let the lives of the broad masses be as sweet as honey, becoming more and more prosperous.

Reporter: Wu Peitao, Hu Lu

Translator: Zhi Xinghua

Review: Hu Rongguo, Drakpa Wangchen