Move toward machinery helps cultivate village's rapid growth

Party chief introduces technology and e-commerce to update practices, boost incomes

If anyone has a problem in Machang, a village in the northeastern city of Changchun in Jilin province, they all know immediately what to do: Go see Li Hualiang.

The 39-year-old, who has been the village's Party chief since 2013, is the person residents say they trust most to help lift them out of poverty and achieve prosperity.

His achievements in rural development saw him elected as a delegate to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October.

Li has been dedicated to helping the poor since he graduated senior high school in 2001. To start with, his family was his focus. With his father in poor health, he initially gave up on applying to college to help out at home.

But he said that did not stop him from pursuing knowledge.

He eventually got to realize his dream to attend university in 2007 thanks to a program introduced in Jilin province to have at least one college student from every village.

Li enrolled at Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University and devoted all his time and energy to his major - crop production - and learned about modern trends in agricultural development.

In 2008, when he heard that the central government had introduced preferential policies to support agricultural mechanization, he struck upon an idea.

"I decided to found a professional agricultural machinery team in my village to change the traditional farming methods that had been used for several generations," he said. "Only by liberating people from the farmland can we help achieve prosperity."

Machang has 600 hectares of rice fields, about 90 percent of its farmed land.