Mizhi, a county in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, has been hailed as “the county of beauty.” Folktales tell it is the birthplace of Diao Chan, a woman considered one of the four great beauties of ancient China. Located on the Loess Plateau, Mizhi has natural climate and soil advantages for growing millet, one of the oldest cultivated grains in the world. The millet that grows there is of a higher quality, which is reputedly the secret to local women’s good skin.
Despite the beautiful tale, Mizhi farmers have, in the past, been unable to find a market for their millet due to a lack of visibility. However, the emergence of e-commerce is helping them secure livelihoods from the crop. “The purchasing price of local millet was 1.6-1.8 yuan ($0.23-0.26) per (500 grams) in 2016, when I started the business,” Zhang Xiongbiao, founding General Manager of the Shaanxi Young Entrepreneurs League. “The price has now doubled.”
