Buyers select Nanhong agate stones in Xichang Nanhong agate market, Sichuan Province, in 2013. Photo: CFP

The small hill in Meigu county, Southwest China's Sichuan Province is pitted with dozens of deep holes, and villagers-turned miners swing hoes desperately.

Local people call this "hole theft," referring to the illegal mining of agate, according to China Central Television (CCTV).

The Meigu county government banned illegal agate mining years ago, and those seized would face fines and prison terms, the report said.

But many local villagers still risk their lives in the illegal business, driven by the skyrocketing price for the traditionally previous stone.

Nanhong agate, a rare source agate in dark red, is mainly produced in Meigu county and Baoshan in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. It is considered conducive to people's digestive system, intestines and stomach, and is popular among Buddhists.

A small Nanhong agate bead used to cost only several yuan back in 2000. But prices soared to hundreds of yuan in 2005, and collectors continued to push the price to tens of thousands of yuan after 2011, according to news portal gmw.cn.

The price of Nanhong agate can be sold at up to over 10,000 yuan ($62,535) a gram.

Rampant illegal agate mining can easily trigger landslides, which can damage the local ecosystem and threaten the lives of residents residing downhill from the slides, local officials said.

Prospering illegal business 

Several 10-year-old children were searching for Nanhong agate with hoes outside the holes in the cold winter when CCTV reporters visited the illegal mining sites earlier this month.

Instead of going to school, a lot of local children help their families to mine.

Agate stones are sold immediately after they are found in the hills with, over 2,000 diggers and buyers involved in the business every day.

"I started digging [agate] since last April, and I've earned over 170,000 yuan," a local villager was quoted as saying by CCTV.

A little girl who bought a bunch of agate stones from local diggers in 700 yuan said she would sell those stones for double the price she paid to other buyers.

Most of the agate found by local residents is sold at the Nanhong agate trading market in Xichang, a city 100 kilometers away from Meigu county.

Collectors have elbowed their way into the market at 6 am every day since the market opened in 2013.

After processing, the Nanhong agate products are sold for a range of prices. The best cherry red agate can be sold at over 10,000 yuan for each gram, according to Zeng Chaozhi, a major dealer.

Collectors face huge risks in buying high quality Nanhong agate, and even for Nanhong agate dealers like Zeng, the risk can be high.

"Business is slow in recent days, and I can turn over about 300,000 yuan every day," Zeng told the Sichuan Daily. He added that normally he could make 600,000 yuan daily.

The trade volume for the whole market is about 1 million yuan every day, according to the manager of the market, Li Zhongwen.

Zhang Bowei, deputy president of the Nanhong agate association, said that the original price for agate was only several dozen yuan for each 500 grams, but the price has increased thousands of times since early 2000.

Xichang market is just one of the many Nanhong agate trading markets. The average daily trade of Nanhong agate in China is about 40 million yuan, according to Pan Lin, deputy head of Meigu county, with other markets for the agate in Chengdu, Guangzhou and Beijing.

Difficult to curb

Ma Yezhe, an officer with the Jiukou township police station in Meigu county, walked out of a hole with a handcart and some plastic dustpans in a cold morning last December.

"They [illegal agate diggers] have already left, and we only confiscated some mining tools," Ma was quoted by Sichuan Daily.

Nanhong agates have been found in 16 townships in Meigu county including Jiukou.

Jizi Muyi, a resident in Jiukou  said that the increasing popularity of Nanhong agates broke the peace in his village.

The illegal mining diggers involving some organized crime groups severely affects local people's daily life, Jizi told the Sichuan Daily.

In 2014, the Meigu county government deployed 300 law enforcement officers urging 30,000 agate diggers to leave the hills and arresting 16 people. The government imposed a total of 280,000 yuan in fines for illegal mining.

The government and the diggers have been playing cat-and-mouse since the county established a special force to curb the illegal mining in 2010.

Nanhong agate, formed after volcanic eruptions, is scattered widely in mountainous region, which is too big for officers to patrol cover, Hu Kangshun, with the Meigu land and resource administration, told the CCTV.

During the rainy reasons, the government has to increase the number of patrolling officers in case of sudden landslides. 

Turning point

Considering the booming agate market in China, banning the business would make little sense, so the Meigu county government decided to auction off agate mining rights, the Sichuan Daily reported.

The county government set up eight agate mines for auction in 2012, and will sell the mining rights early this year, Pan said.

After the auction, the government will arrange local villagers to find work in the mining enterprises, and develop tourism projects to raise local people's living standards.

"The bidders have to establish a foothold in Meigu, and invest in the Nanhong agate industry while exploiting agate," Pan said.

The Meigu county plans to build a Nanhong agate industrial park that will include agate exhibitions and an assessment center.

"We have started the construction of a hotel inside the park, and will open to tourists and agate collectors in 2015," Pan said.

Meanwhile, a trading market company was established last December for trading Nanhong agates, rare earths and agricultural products. The company manager, Hu Fei, said that the company would develop 100 enterprises with at least 5 million in registered capital as its members, and set a trading volume target of 400 billion yuan every year.


Newspaper headline: Agate rush