On October 23rd, a certification ceremony was held in Hantai District, Shaanxi Province, where Wu Jianhai and 14 other individuals were awarded the title of “Qingyuan Mushroom Master” by the local government of Hantai in collaboration with Qingyuan County from Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. The event celebrated a significant step towards breaking down talent brand barriers between the two regions and establishing mutual recognition of edible mushroom skill professionals.
Qingyuan is recognized as the birthplace of cultivated shiitake mushrooms. In recent years, the region has focused on training skilled talents, resulting in a large number of “Qingyuan Mushroom Masters” who have gone on to support over 300,000 farmers across more than 400 counties in 20 provinces throughout the country with cultivation techniques.
To further break down regional talent barriers, Qingyuan County is pioneering a new model for remote certification. Starting in July 2024, they selected Hebei and Shaanxi Provinces as pilot regions for the remote certification of “Qingyuan Mushroom Masters.” This initiative involves conducting research on skill demand, providing training, evaluating skills, and facilitating exchanges to create a closed-loop system.
Long Li, the Deputy Director of the Hantai District Agricultural and Rural Bureau, commented, “The mutual recognition mechanism will promote the effective mobility of edible mushroom talent. We are committed to providing supportive policies for entrepreneurial talents in the edible mushroom industry and will incorporate those who are recognized as ‘Qingyuan Mushroom Masters’ into our local talent policies.”
Currently, Qingyuan County is expanding this certification scope to provinces like Guizhou and Jiangxi. According to Li Ying, the Deputy Director of the Qingyuan County Organization Department, a key focus for the future will be to effectively bridge the pathways between skilled labor and professional technical title recognition.
As of now, Qingyuan County has trained and certified a total of 703 “Qingyuan Mushroom Masters” through selection and training. Under their guidance, the entire industry chain has a total output value exceeding 5 billion yuan, and the brand value of “Qingyuan Mushroom” has reached 14.628 billion yuan, maintaining its status as China’s top brand of edible mushrooms for eight consecutive years.
Chinese Academy of Engineering member and mycologist Li Yu emphasized that the mutual recognition of the “Qingyuan Mushroom Master” talent brand holds deeper significance by reshaping and enhancing the technological development of the entire edible mushroom industry. “I believe that this recognition mechanism will provide precise skill support for the high-quality development of edible mushrooms nationwide. In the future, I hope to leverage the ‘Qingyuan experience’ from the Lin-Growth co-cultivation system in Zhejiang to disseminate high-quality skill resources throughout all major mushroom-producing areas across the country, achieving shared outcomes,” Li stated.
