Global Times: How to care for tens of thousands of seniors in remote mountain villages? This county in East China has a solution

BEIJING, July 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Life has never been happier for Xu Furong.

The 86-year-old resident of Nanliuzhuang village starts each morning with a bit of light housework. Then, hand in hand with her 90-year-old husband, she walks for about 10 minutes, crossing two streets to reach the "senior canteen," which offers elderly residents convenient services at the "Yiyuanhong" Happy Home Livelihood Complex located just across from the village's Party committee office.

During the heat of summer, the senior canteen offers a refreshing and comfortable haven. By around 10:30 am, more than a dozen senior residents have gathered, waiting for lunch while chatting casually as they cool off - relaxed and content in the lively atmosphere. In the kitchen, two cooks efficiently prepare fresh dishes. For just 1 yuan ($0.14), Xu Furong enjoys two hearty food courses - stir-fried bean sprouts with pork and scrambled eggs with onions - along with a bowl of millet porridge and two steamed buns.

Simple, tasty, and tailored to the local senior palate.

"Having meals here is just so convenient," Xu said with a grateful smile. "Cooking for ourselves used to be troublesome, and our children aren't always around. My husband and I would often just make do. But now we eat well and get to chat with old friends every day."

Xu is just one of tens of thousands of seniors whose lives have improved significantly due to the establishment of senior canteens.

Yiyuan county, located in East China's Shandong Province and home to Nanliuzhuang village, represents a typical aging rural area in China's mountainous regions. With a total population of about 515,000, nearly 26 percent are aged 60 and above - well above the national average.

The county sits in the central mountainous region of Shandong, nestled in the Yimeng Mountains. Over 99 percent of its terrain is hilly, and local agriculture revolves around fruit cultivation - mainly apples, peaches, and cherries. The rugged geography and scattered aging population make traditional eldercare services difficult to implement.

To address these challenges, Yiyuan has pioneered a new model in recent years: "Farming for farmers, caring for farmers." At the core is the "Yiyuanhong" project, which integrates facilities including senior canteens, public bathhouses, barbershops, health clinics, and convenience stores.

This model has become a grassroots blueprint for resolving eldercare issues in rural China. Since its launch in 2022, through public funding, resource integration, platform operations, and collective village support, Yiyuan has established 230 Happy Home Livelihood Complexes and 168 food assistance stations, achieving full eldercare coverage across all 446 villages in the county.

'A dining hall in our village'

While Xu Furong and her old friends enjoy lunch at the long tables in the dining hall, meal delivery worker Xu Lihong dons her bright red vest and sets off on her electric scooter.

She weaves through the winding village lanes to deliver a hot meal to a senior couple with limited mobility. This special delivery service is part of the Nanliuzhuang complex's offering for those who need extra care.

Previously a full-time farmer, 50-year-old Xu Lihong said the job not only supplements her family income, but also gives her a sense of fulfillment. "The seniors light up when they see me. I feel very accomplished," she said.

In the nearby village of Fanziyu, a small, tidy mountain community of just over 290 residents, Fang Lijuan is the head chef, as well as the only employee at the local senior canteen.

As skillfully peeling potatoes, she explained, "Every day we serve 20 to 30 seniors. Cooking for them and seeing them chatting and laughing together makes me genuinely happy. This job feels meaningful."

But Fang does not work alone. Behind her is a well-organized system that supports every aspect of operations.

Everything she needs, from vegetables to cooking oil to a broom, comes from a county-level supply center. She simply places orders via her phone. The steamed buns served daily are produced in a centralized kitchen in the county seat and delivered to each village dining hall before 7 am.

"The kitchen staff here only needs to do light prep work before meals. It really reduces our workload," Fang added.

The centralized kitchen is operated by the Luzhong Food Company, a government-supported enterprise. Li Xuebin, the company's deputy general manager, told the Global Times that the facility has created more than 300 jobs for local communities.

The high-quality, standardized food products are also sold to the public and supply meals to local schools and government departments, further amplifying the project's social benefits.

Each of Yiyuan's 230 Happy Home complexes features not only a senior canteen, but also regularly operating bathhouses, barbershops, health clinics, convenience stores, and activity squares, providing "one-stop" daily care for senior villagers.

In Longziyu village on the western edge of Yiyuan, village Party chief Dong Fangxin was rehearsing the village anthem with four residents in a community activity room.

He pointed out the window to the courtyard of the Happy Home complex, which houses various service facilities. In a room across the yard, a doctor from the township hospital was performing acupuncture treatments for villagers.

"We want to make sure seniors can enjoy the same convenience in their own villages that city dwellers do," Dong told the Global Times.

A system with warmth

In Yiyuan, eldercare is not some distant policy ideal - it starts with a hot meal, a clean bath, and a warm bed.

According to county Party chief Zhang Tao, as the number of seniors living alone or without family continues to rise, eldercare in mountain villages faces the triple difficulty of food, daily care, and farming. Many senior residents eat one meal across two sittings or skip meals entirely. Those with limited mobility struggle with daily tasks, medical care, and shopping.

Meanwhile, older farmers in hilly fruit-growing areas often can't tend to their orchards, limiting both their income and quality of life.

"How can one small village afford to keep a barber shop running?" Zhang asked. Before the project launched, authorities conducted eight rounds of surveys, visiting each household to identify the most urgent needs of seniors and tailor services accordingly.

These widespread yet specific issues gave birth to the Yiyuanhong model.

What's more, the program follows a "one village, one blueprint; one village, one industry" approach. Each Happy Home Livelihood Complex is uniquely designed and integrated into a suitable industry.

For example, in the remote village of Yihenan, a novel "unused land-for-elderly-care" system was developed. The village reclaimed unused residential land and implemented a land adjustment scheme to raise initial funds to build the Happiness Home Livelihood Complex.

Now completed, the facility offers free long-term food and lodging to senior residents in need. The village collective also launched a kiwi fruit farming operation, using the income to sustain eldercare, a virtuous cycle.

Liu Wenmei, 89, and Zhang Xiangmei, 86, two sisters-in-law, are full-time residents of the Happiness Home Livelihood Complex. "We eat and live well here, and I get to chat with my old friends every day," said Liu.

In Yihetou village, grapes have become the key to eldercare funding. Led by Party chief Song Shangye, the village has cultivated premium varieties like the popular Kyoho and Shine Muscat, introduced modern farming methods, and hired experts to oversee production.

In 2024, grape farming and sales brought in over 400,000 yuan for the village. Around 180,000 yuan was used for senior dining hall - providing solid support for the complex's operations while achieving financial self-sufficiency.

In Longziyu village, where geographical and ecological advantages abound, a new model combining "cultural tourism + eldercare" has emerged. Old houses have been transformed into hotels, abandoned courtyards into art spaces, and the "camping + village kitchen" experience draws young urbanites on weekends.

Even French architect Paul Andreu lived here for inspiration, helping the mountain village become a new highlight in the region's tourism industry, the Global Times reporter learned while visiting the village.

A down-to-earth solution

The Yiyuanhong is not a stand-alone care platform - it is a grassroots network linking services, governance, and industry to offer a practical, replicable rural eldercare solution.

It creates public service jobs through senior dining halls, funds eldercare through collective economic revenue, and extends social governance through systematic platforms. In doing so, it truly embeds care into rural daily life.

Party Chief Zhang believes the success of Yiyuan's model lies in its people-centered approach. "It's not just about building the facilities or handing out money. The mechanism must be activated. It has to take root and thrive."

"Village Party chiefs are essentially the CEOs of rural revitalization," he said. "We must train them to be dedicated, capable, and responsible leaders."
Yiyuan is also integrating future-oriented technologies into its eldercare system.

In Dongli township, the county has established a smart home-based eldercare platform, now covering 18 villages and 221 key senior households.

Each home is equipped with smart terminals connected to a county-level command center, enabling real-time monitoring and emergency response.

Through the system, seniors can consult with professionals remotely. If an emergency arises, care providers are dispatched immediately.

"Our next step is to refine this model into a set of transferable practices," Zhang said, "so it can serve mountainous aging regions like Southwest China's Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, and further support rural revitalization efforts in rural vitalization and beyond."

Through continuous efforts, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents in China were all lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages were removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

In Yiyuan, Xu Furong and her husband, after lunch, help each other on the 15-minute-long uphill walk back home. Xu Lihong heads out to deliver meals to the next household. And Fang Lijuan is already planning to make dumplings for the village seniors tomorrow.

When happiness is no longer a distant "project goal" but a daily experience the people can see and feel, that is the most vivid expression of a people-centered approach to human rights.