Liangjiahe: Where Xi Jinping's poverty alleviation inspiration began

[TaiShang]

In 1969, a teenager from Beijing joined 17 million Chinese students in the "Down to the Countryside Movement," a campaign launched by Chairman Mao Zedong that asked urban youth to experience life by working in rural areas.

He traveled to a desolate village on the Loess Plateau in northwest China, and spent seven years living among its soft-dirt mountains and in its simple caves.

His name is Xi Jinping.

Liangjiahe, a then barren mountain village in Shaanxi Province, is now a prosperous place with modern agriculture and a booming tourism industry.

Photo taken on December 24, 2016, shows the cave dwelling Xi Jinping lived in during his days in Liangjiahe Village, Yanchuan County in Yan'an City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. /Xinhua

'Have meat and have it often'

Back then, life was harsh in Liangjiahe.

Xi lived in caves alongside the villagers and slept on a bed made of bricks and clay.

"People lived in poverty. They often went months without meat. What I wanted to do the most was to make it possible for the villagers not just to have meat sometimes, but to often have meat on their plates," said Xi, who is now Chinese president, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Xi Jinping participates in farm work in Liangjiahe Village, Yanchuan County in Yan'an City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. /Xinhua

After Xi became Party secretary of Liangjiahe Village in January 1974, he led villagers in a series of projects.

"These included the 'Educated Youth Dam,' the 'Educated Youth Well' – which remains the source of our tap water today – and later the iron mill, the supplies and sales office, the grain mill and the sewing workshop. These were only some of the good deeds he performed when he was Party secretary of Liangjiahe," recalled Shi Chunyang, former secretary of the CPC branch of Liangjiahe Village.

Xi decided that his top priority for the villagers would be food. He proposed improving the local soil conditions by building a dam, which would transform a large area of arid land into productive fields and improve crop yields.

Xi Jinping visits the cave dwelling he lived in during his days in Liangjiahe Village, Yanchuan County in Yan'an City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, February 13, 2015. /Xinhua

A microcosm

Xi's plan to bring meat to villagers' tables has since come to fruition.

"In 1975, we saw some good results of the dam," Shi said. "Firstly, the river bed could be used for farmland. Secondly, soil conditions improved, increasing yields from 1,500 kg per hectare to about 7,500 kg."

Building on those foundations, Liangjiahe was gradually transformed over the following decades.

It has developed over 60 hectares of orchards on the mountains. It introduced photovoltaic facilities, developed aquaculture in the river and built vegetable greenhouses – and now tourism development is the focus of the village.

Aerial photo taken on July 29, 2020, shows a road winding through Liangjiahe Village, Yanchuan County in Yan'an City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. /Xinhua

Liangjiahe's annual income per capita of about 9,600 yuan ($1,478) in 2014 rose to 21,634 yuan ($3,335) in 2019.

There used to be 14 poverty-stricken households comprising 44 people in Liangjiahe, but it shook off poverty in 2018, according to Gong Baoxiong, secretary of the CPC branch of the village.

In a 2015 speech in the U.S. city of Seattle, Xi hailed Liangjiahe's progress as a microcosm of China's economic and social development since reform and opening-up began in 1978.

Today, thousands come to the village to see the humble and harsh lifestyle that helped shape President Xi and to better understand his fervent fight against poverty.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-...ation-inspiration-began-Y1PFjarqnu/index.html

 

[TaiShang]

Red rice helps lift Hani people out of poverty

China's achievements in poverty reduction have been incredible, thanks to no small part to governmen

www.shine.cn

China’s achievements in poverty reduction have been incredible — especially in face of the coronavirus pandemic challenge — thanks to no small part to government intervention and innovators such as Li Fujun.

Born on a farm in Shandong Province, Li came to Shanghai to study at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics. After graduation, he started a small trading company in hardware business. In 2013, at the age of 40, he had an idea to switch to farm products from the rural areas.
“Our original intention was very simple. We wanted to build a national brand of high quality agricultural produce, especially rice-based whole grains,” Li said.

Since the company’s inception, it has created nearly 100 poverty alleviation products in about 15 counties across the country — including Honghe County in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.

On a visit to Honghe County, the agricultural trader was moved by the picturesque Samaba Rice Terrace Fields — the largest linked pieces of terraces in the world. The Hani people, one of China’s 55 ethnic minority groups, have grown the red rice for more than 1,300 years. And Li thought it a good food to be put on the dining tables of Shanghai, more than 2,000 kilometers away.

Now, he has done it.

Dai Qian / SHINE

Red rice is a staple for Hani people in Honghe County, Yunnan Province.

“It’s not easy to reach the fields at an altitude of about 1,800 meters,” said Li, after a flight from Shanghai to Kunming City in Yunnan Province, plus an eight-hour drive through a winding road up the Ailao Mountains.

“My idea was to introduce a plateau specialty from the western mountainous area to the eastern coastal cities,” Li said, adding he also wanted to increase the income of local farmers so they could live a naturally sustainable life in these fields, helping to uphold the traditional knowledge, wisdom and cultural values of the community.

In June 2013, the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces was included on the World Cultural Heritage List.

Red rice is generally planted at an altitude between 1,400 and 1,800 meters. Its growth period is about 200 days, which is two months longer than rice from northeast China. With no pesticides and no chemical fertilizers, red rice is an ecological product, which can be planted only once a year.

Compared with ordinary rice, red rice has a higher content of nutrients, such as trace elements, amino acids and protein.

Hani people accounts for 76.5 percent of Honghe County’s population of 340,600 and red rice, of course, is their main food crop.
Ma Minu is a typical Hani woman working in the terrace fields. Her husband works away from home all year round, while her three children study at school. She has a three-acre red rice paddy field to look after which yields nearly 300 kilograms each acre.

“I need someone to share this burden,” the 43-year-old said.

Hu Jun / SHINE

Ma Minu harvests red rice with a sickle in the field.

There are more than 13,100 women, like Ma, in Honghe County. To increase income, most people in their 20s and 30s leave home to study or work in cities, leaving only the elderly and women to cultivate terraced fields.

“If I do not improve the value of the Hani terraces, they will be deserted and we will have no world heritage,” said Yang Jianwen, the founder of a local red rice production and processing enterprise.

Yang also had worked away from the families for over 10 years before he returned to his hometown and started the company.

Yang has hired hands from more than 1,270 households to work on their fields and increased their income by purchasing the red rice from them.

He Ying is another who returned home to work. She is boss of the Sama Sunshine Hotel and Inn. She returned to her hometown in 2016 to start selling red rice and other sideline products in the inn.

“I’m proud of being a Hani ethnic. The terrace fields have been passed down to us by our ancestors for generations,” said the 26-year-old innkeeper. “In my shop, terraced red rice is a must buy for tourists and a very popular food on the table.”

She also sells red rice and the sideline products on Taobao, Weidian and other online platforms.

Even so, it’s still not enough.

Hu Jun / SHINE
Hani people sing and dance in the terraced paddy fields, a harvesting ritual performed to this day.

Deputy director of the Honghe County Poverty Alleviation Office Wei Wei believes that “the local people in Honghe are very hardworking and Honghe has many good things.” To lift people from poverty, they need platforms and to learn how to promote their produce.

Li Fujun and his colleagues have worked hard on transportation and branding issues to promote red rice.

His company, Shanghai Saihongwawa, as a brand operator for agricultural products, launched an Enterprises Futian Plan in 2017, allowing companies to implement collective advance purchases of red rice.

“Planned planting and production will not cause a waste of land resources,” said Li, who revealed that they have 1,300 acres of fields dedicated to the growth of Hani red rice that would, under contractual arrangement, be sold to target customers.

Li has also set up several other alliances. He helped China Women’s Development Foundation set up three “mothers’ homes” in Honghe County, teaching local women scientific farming methods and learning e-commerce strategy. He has e-commerce platforms with China Construction Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and promotes poverty alleviation agricultural products, such as red rice, in Chinese supermarkets.

Pinduoduo, the largest agriculture-focused technology platform in China, is on board, as is Shanghai’s Changning District, which has opened six offline sales stores. They conducted five live online broadcasts, which attracted over 1 million people online, generating sales of more than 1 million yuan (US$154,700).

“I feel everyone has more interest and confidence in planting now. Moreover, their enthusiasm is higher,” Yang said. “Especially those who plant red rice, the value of which has increased by more than 100 percent on the original basis.”

Our original intention was very simple. We wanted to build a national brand of high quality agricultural produce, especially rice-based whole grains.Li Fujun, Founder of Shanghai Saihongwawa

Li and his team have increased the income of more than 1,000 registered poor households through planting red rice. In 2017, Honghe County had nearly 18,000 households with 81,000 of them registered as living under the poverty line. They were all lifted out of poverty at the end of last year.

But that’s not all. Li is still looking for new ways to improve the lives of rural folk by using modern technology and cooperating with Shanghai scientific research institutions, to turn primary agricultural products into refined products, such as extracting the nutrients of red rice. In the future, there may be high-tech products such as red rice facial masks and red rice meal replacements.

Li also wants to take children living in cities to the terraced fields, letting them see how red rice is grown.

“Then they will be able to experience the meaning of ‘do not waste every grain of rice,’” said Li.

Source: SHINE Editor: Wang Haoling