Village renewal began with new crops

Editor's note: In the run-up to the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress, China Daily sent six reporters to villages nationwide to live for a month and take a look at how people are working under China's poverty eradication plan.

Driving through Gufang village on its 6-meter-wide asphalt road, one will notice solar street lamps, brand-new houses and orchards lining both sides of the road.

These have all arrived in the past two years, since the village, part of Huichang county in southern Jiangxi province, launched a poverty alleviation campaign.

The narrow road running through the village was upgraded, wasted patches of farmland were leveled, garbage was cleaned out of the nearby rivers and new homes were built for villagers living in dilapidated dwellings.

But the infrastructure isn't the most remarkable thing about Gufang. That honor belongs to its agricultural reform.

For more than half a century, fish farming was the only industry that generated income for villagers, according to Gao Shaohua, an official from Wenwuba township.

Rice was cultivated to make them self-sufficient, he said. "But in recent years, the younger generation has tended to seek opportunities in cities rather than growing rice at home, letting a lot of farmland go to waste."

In 2014, 75 of the 242 households in Gufang were struggling below the poverty line - 3,146 yuan ($457) annual income.

Local authorities decided that modern agriculture is the key to eradicating poverty, and an agricultural cooperative was formed in April last year. To draft an industrial outlook for the village, the 12-member cooperative council spent days and nights researching and brainstorming.

"Gufang is on the outskirts of Wenwuba, the county seat of Huichang, which makes it a convenient weekend destination for urban people," said Zou Shirong, head of the council. "Council members agreed that we should create pick-your-own orchards and vegetable farms to lure tourists."

The council also decided to convert less-profitable rice paddies into vegetable gardens to cater to the city's large demand for fresh vegetables.

As for the village's forte, fish farming, the council chose to expand the business by merging small fishponds into larger ones with upgraded facilities.

After a plan was sketched out, the council members started raising funds, each borrowing hundreds of thousands of yuan in loans from the bank. According to Zou, the council has so far raised 5 million yuan to build greenhouses, buy seedlings and install facilities.

"There could be some risk, but no one hesitated to invest, because this was the only chance to make our village a better place and we all wanted it to prosper," he said.

Their efforts are paying off. The village is quickly morphing into a modern rural community. It is predicted that new industries will bring in 800,000 yuan in profit this year. And that number will soar in three years when the orchards bear fruit.

So far, 108 households - most of them older villagers for whom work in the city is impractical - have signed contracts with the cooperative.

Zeng Qingjiao is one of them. The 57-year-old from a poor family works in the vegetable fields.

"I work eight hours a day and earn 1,500 yuan a month," she said. "I used to grow rice but could barely support the family, as my husband is disabled. It helps that I now have a stable income."

By the end of last year, all 75 impoverished families in Gufang had been lifted out of poverty.

zuozhuo@chinadaily.com.cn