Farmers harvest mushrooms in a greenhouse in Qifu village in Handan city, North China’s Hebei Province on Wednesday. Local authorities have encouraged farmers to learn advanced technology and develop the edible fungus sector, which has become the main income source for many local residents. Photo: cnsphoto

 China's rural supply and marketing cooperatives posted growth in the purchase of farm produce in the first 10 months of this year, the latest data showed.

These cooperatives purchased a total of 1.3 trillion yuan (about 197.7 billion US dollars) of agricultural products during the period, up 13.4 percent year on year, according to the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC).

In October alone, the purchase surged 49 percent year on year to 199.7 billion yuan, data from the ACFSMC showed.

Cooperatives at or below the county level saw their retail sales of consumer goods amount to 1.1 trillion yuan in the first ten months, up 5.6 percent from one year earlier, with the sales in the third quarter expanding 22.7 percent from the second quarter.

The country's rural supply and marketing system has so far established 9,663 product distribution centers and 846,000 distribution sites that are mainly scattered in county seats and townships, the ACFSMC added.