LANZHOU, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Returning to his hometown enveloped in barren mountains, Yan Pengfei doggedly battled the harsh environment to plant trees on the land the size of 100 football fields for the past 10 years.

Yan, 40, was born in the Heijiacha Village, Longxi County of southwest China's Gansu Province. The fragile ecosystem, dry weather, and mountainous landscape contributed to a wide range of barren land, from where many young people wished to leave.

In 2000, Yan moved to Lanzhou, the provincial capital that is nearly 200 km away from his hometown, to start his own business. With the support of his family, he opened a clothing processing factory and earned his first bucket of gold, leading a decent life.

In 2012, authorities in Longxi County started to encourage private capital to participate in soil erosion control and development. Local officials invited Yan, hoping the businessman could help.

Yan agreed and planned to explore a new way to develop dryland forestry with economic and ecological forests, which were expected to afforest barren mountains and increase farmers' income.

Yan invested over 1 million yuan (about 158,000 U.S. dollars) to transform 133 hectares of barren hills and slopes and leased 200 hectares of arable land from local farmers, planting walnut trees and apricot trees, to name a few.

After many twists and turns, Yan found the natural environment of his hometown even harsher -- the mountains, steep slopes, as well as a lack of water and roads.

But if it did not rain, he would hire a cart to pull water; if there was no way out, he would invest in the construction of roads; faced with the slopes, he would take the lead in transforming the land to terraced land.

"From 2012 to 2020, I paid for manpower to fetch water from the water station at the foot of the mountain to water the saplings, and to plant trees, we constructed more than 10 km of mountain road," Yan said.

Despite deaths of trees caused by extreme weather, in the past decade, Yan planted more than 300,000 trees on the land spanning something like 200 soccer fields in such an uninhabitable area.

The afforestation project has brought more humid weather and more jobs to locals. Now, every year, about 100 farmers join Yan in planting trees to make their homes greener.

In 2018, Yan built an organic fertilizer factory with the support of the local government to provide fertilizer for fruits and vegetables on the trees while enabling locals to work nearby.

Local farmer Yao Yanting came to work in the factory, and now, with no need to work far from home, she earns some 5,000 yuan per month.

"There is only a start, but no end, for planting trees," Yan said, "a few decades later, a real forest will be erected here."