Attendees of launch ceremony for the 2021 Datong Daylily Harvest Month pick daylilies in Yunzhou district, Datong city, on July 12. [Photo/sxgov.cn] 

The launch ceremony for the 2021 Datong Daylily Harvest Month was held on July 12 in Yunzhou district of Datong city, North China's Shanxi province. 

More than 240 people attended the ceremony, including officials from Datong municipal government and Party committee, Taiyuan Customs and Shanxi Agricultural University. 

Ai Lingyu, Datong municipal Party committee deputy secretary, gave a briefing on the overall schedule for the harvest month and invited domestic and foreign merchants, entrepreneurs and people from all walks of life to come to the city in search of prime business opportunities.

The 2021 Datong Daylily Harvest Month runs to Aug 15. 

During the event, academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, experts and academics in the field of daylily culture, as well as athletes, will be invited to give talks during a live broadcast on the planting, production, processing and marketing of the daylily industry and its upstream and downstream industries. 

Key activities including a Daylily Industry Development Forum, a music festival and a daylily order fair will also be staged. The city will help expand the sales of daylilies and market them through online and offline channels during the event.

Baskets of fresh daylilies in Yunzhou district [photo/sxgov.cn]

The 2021 Datong Daylily Harvest Month is expected to showcase the development achievements of the daylily industry in Datong and is also seen as an important initiative to promote the high-quality development of the industry. 

Datong has been planting daylilies for more than 600 years and is one of four major daylily production regions in China. 

The region's plentiful sunshine, large temperature difference between day and night and zinc-rich and selenium-rich soil formed by ancient volcanic eruptions there have endowed the Datong daylily with a golden color, fleshy buds, fragrant smell and rich nutritional value. 

Since 2020, Datong has expanded its daylily planting, processing and marketing systems, turning the daylily industry into a sector that helps revitalize rural industries and consolidate poverty alleviation results. 

The city applied this year for official approval for the establishment of the Datong Daylily National Modern Agricultural Industrial Park, which has a planned area covering 54,160 hectares and will cost 2.36 billion yuan ($363.83 million). 

Currently, the daylily cultivation area in the city covers 17,400 ha, accounting for about a quarter of the nation's daylily planting areas. Moreover, Datong has developed over 100 types of daylily dishes, beverages, food and other products, with the annual output value estimated at 1.84 billion yuan.