Yanhe Tujia Autonomous County in Guizhou Province is located in the northeast of Guizhou.
The well-known Wujiang River flows through the county for more than 130 kilometers.
On both sides of the Wujiang River are mountains with ridges and peaks, and villages of various sizes are scattered among the ravines and mountains.
Poor traffic was once the biggest factor restricting the development of Yanhe County.
In recent years, not only highways but also cement roads have been opened in Yanhe County.
Transportation has improved the foundation for the development of industries along the river. The poor people ignited the spark of poverty alleviation industry in the mountains and deep gullies. This spark will surely become a raging flame and illuminate the entire road of poverty alleviation development along the river.
Let traditional products grow into industries
Guizhou people love to eat chili, but Guizhou chili was not an industry for a long time.
68-year-old Tian Fuhong has lived in Hongxing Village, Guanzhou Town, Yanhe County for decades. He eats hot peppers almost every day, but he never thought that selling hot peppers can increase his income.
When the reporter saw him, he was selling peppers in front of the village stage, and baskets of red peppers were filled.
This year, he and his wife planted 6 acres of hot peppers, with an estimated annual income of more than 20,000 yuan.
The family also sold a cow and earned more than 9,000 yuan in income.
When Tian Fuhong was young, he rushed to the west and worked in other places for more than 20 years. Now he goes home to farm.
Speaking of life, he said that he lives in a three-story building, and the renovation cost more than 100,000 yuan. "Life is getting better and better. I wanted to eat meat in the past, but now I want to be vegetarian."
The reporter visited several villages and towns, where pepper is the main agricultural product.
Huangchi Village in Quanba Town is a remote mountain village and one of the few villages in the town that hasn't escaped poverty.
This year, the village planting cooperative planted more than 330 mu of peppers.
Song Hui, the commander of the Poverty Alleviation Headquarters of the Yanhe County CPPCC stationed in Quanba Town, said that the annual collective income of Huangchi Village exceeds 450,000 yuan for pepper alone.
This year, the town's pepper planting area is 2516.5 mu.
Pepper has not only become an important source of income in Huangchi Village, but also an important industry for poverty-stricken households in Quanba Town.
Song Hui analyzed that in the past, only 200 to 300 acres of peppers were planted in Quanba Town, and they were all cultivated scattered by farmers.
Because of the inconvenience of transportation and the distance from the town, no one thought that pepper is also a way to increase income.
In the past two years, traffic in Huangchi Village has been greatly improved. Asphalt roads were opened in April this year, making it easier for farmers to travel, and for vehicles from other places to enter the village more quickly, and transportation of peppers has become easier.
With perfect infrastructure, small products can be scaled up and become industries.
Quanba Town is a relatively remote township in Yanhe County.
The development of the pepper industry in Quanba Town is part of the income increase of industries along the river.
In the work of poverty alleviation, Yanhe County earnestly implemented Guizhou Province's requirements for adjusting the agricultural industrial structure and developing poverty alleviation industries, and regarded the cultivation of cash crops as an important industry to increase farmers' income.
How can income increase?
While Yanhe County is carrying out long-term industrial planning, it is also proposed to have "short-term flat and fast" projects.
The four industries of pepper, edible fungus (black fungus), ecological chicken and live pigs have been identified as "short, flat and fast" income increase projects by Yanhe County.
It is understood that these four industries alone will increase the income of 19,573 poor households in 2019.
Yanhe County has newly developed 59,200 mu of chili planting this year, and more than 4,000 tons have been picked and sold.
The county has adopted measures such as introducing processing enterprises and opening up sales channels to turn peppers into commodities and help farmers increase their income.
Farmers in Ma Nao Village, Guanzhou Town, are busy working at the Intelligent Mushroom Stick Factory this year.
The Brahma Mushroom Yanhe Intelligent Mushroom Stick Factory with a daily output of 60,000 bags was completed and put into production here. The factory has become an important way for farmers to find employment.
Xiao Yongchan’s job is to install bacteria bags on the production line. After working in Shenzhen for five or six years, she did not go out to work this year.
"The factory pays 80 yuan a day, although it is less than outside, but it can take care of the children and take care of the family." She said that it is better to make money at home than to go out.
Farmers need "short and fast" industries to increase their income.
These industries have brought direct benefits to farmers, and also give poor households full confidence in getting rid of poverty.
Use external forces to make up for industry shortcomings
Industry is the basis for poverty alleviation, but poor areas often have shortcomings in industrial development.
Because the shortcomings cannot be made up, industrial development is difficult and slow.
Yanhe County develops poverty alleviation industries. While tapping potential, it pays great attention to external forces.
With external efforts to make up for shortcomings, the development of poverty alleviation industries will be smoother.
Pig raising is a habit of local farmers, but farmers raise pigs one family at a time, and the scale cannot be increased. To build a pig farm, on the one hand, funds are not enough, and on the other hand, the scale has gone up and sales are worried.
Scale, capital and sales channels are all bottlenecks restricting the pig breeding industry in mountainous areas.
Yanhe County’s approach is to cooperate with non-local enterprises to make up for the lack of its own industrial factors by means of “substitute support”.
They cooperated with an enterprise in Sichuan and adopted the form of "leading enterprise + cooperative + farmer" to develop a pig farm.
The company provides piglet and feed and is responsible for technical training. The cooperative organizes farmers to carry out "substitute breeding" to raise to a certain standard, and the company is responsible for the follow-up links such as slaughter and sales.
This year, Yanhe County has developed 43 pig generation farms.
The radiation of the project has driven the income of 3,852 farmers in the project area to 15,400 people.
The Sichuan company plans to develop 300,000 pigs along the river this year to next year.
This project will cover 36 villages in 16 townships (sub-districts) including Guanzhou, Zhongzhai and Jiashi.
With this form of cooperation, the pig breeding industry will become an important industry that drives the steady increase of farmers' income along the river.
Gaofeng Village is a deeply impoverished village, with 561 people from 146 households in the village living "looking at the sky for food".
Today, an agricultural industrial park has been built in the village, and people's lives are changing.
52-year-old Luo Xianguo is responsible for breeding in the organic breeding base and earns a steady income of 70,000 yuan per year.
Because both husband and wife have lumbar spondylosis, they can't do heavy work, and they used to be poor households with a file.
Now that he has this job, Luo Xianguo said: "The income is stable and the family has been lifted out of poverty."
Huang Juanqin, a cadre in Gaofeng Village, said that in the long run, the agricultural industrial park not only promotes the development of agricultural industrialization, but also directly increases the income of farmers.
The industrial park in Gaofeng Village was established with the help of Shangang Village, Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province.
Since 2017, Zhangjiagang has participated in the poverty alleviation cooperation between the east and the west, helping Yanhe County.
Zhangjiagang's assistance to Yanhe includes industrial development, infrastructure, personnel training, cultural education, grassroots party building, and social management.
In a deserted ditch outside the village, neat rows of plastic greenhouses have now been built.
Qi Nan, born in 1994, was sent here by Shangang Village to do technical guidance.
He has been here for almost three years and almost everyone in Gaofeng Village knows him.
According to him, this organic agricultural industrial park covers 60 acres. Zhangjiagang also helped Gaofeng Village build 183 acres of organic tea garden and an ecological breeding base.
The industrial park alone has absorbed more than 30 laborers to work here for a long time, directly driving the income of 50 poor households.
Zhangjiagang's assistance, money and technology, and more importantly, helped to make up for the shortcomings in the development of modern agricultural industry along the river and improve the efficiency of agricultural development along the river.
Filling up the shortcomings can drive industry development.
Four major ecological industries are planned along the river, "ecological tea, ecological fruits and vegetables, ecological animal husbandry, and ecological Chinese medicinal materials", and "short and fast" income-increasing projects such as pepper, edible fungus (black fungus), chicken and pig raising have been determined.
The development of the agricultural industry is becoming a strong support for poverty alleviation along the river.
"Tie the poor" to the industrial chain
Only when industrial development is closely linked with poor households can it play a role in driving income growth.
On the one hand, Yanhe County is working hard to develop poverty alleviation industries, and on the other hand, it is also trying to connect with poor households.
Their method is to set up cooperatives in the village to attract poor households to join, and in this way "tied" poor households to the industrial chain.
Song Hui, the commander-in-chief of the supervision and command of poverty alleviation in Quanba Town, is deeply impressed by this "binding" method.
Huangchi Village has been helping the poor in the past and has established an economic cooperation organization, but only a few people have become rich.
Poverty alleviation has entered the critical stage, Huangchi Village adjusted its thinking and implemented the integration of village and community to develop industries.
Huangchi Village has three specialized agricultural cooperatives, namely cattle raising, chicken raising and planting, among which the planting cooperative implements the integration of village and community.
Compared with other cooperatives, this cooperative differs in two aspects: one is to absorb poor households into shares; the other is the difference in profit distribution.
The profit distribution of the cooperative in Huangchi Village follows the principle of "7 Two One".
70% of the profits are at the disposal of the village collective; 20% of the profits are used for cooperative operation support; 10% of the profits are collective assets.
Among them, 70% of the profits controlled by the village collective are mainly used for the development of public welfare jobs.
Huangchi Village used this part of the money to develop 71 public welfare positions, each with a monthly salary of 800 yuan.
Employers in public welfare positions are mainly laborers from poor families.
This part of the funds has solved the employment of the labor force of poor households and provided a way for the poor households to increase their income.
Song Hui said that the form of cooperatives has achieved large-scale products.
The cultivation of pepper and sweet potato in Huangchi Village has formed industrial development in this way.
The distribution method ensures that the income of the cooperative covers the poor households.
This "village and community integration" management model has been clarified in the form of documents of Yanhe County, and all villages in the county are implementing this management method.
With such an industrial development mechanism, it can directly increase the income of poor households and ensure the effectiveness of poverty alleviation.
The reporter learned that only the collective economic income of the pepper industry in Yanhe County has developed 10,488 public welfare jobs, which has "covered" the income "bottom line" of poor households.
(Economic Daily, China Economic Net reporter Wang Xinwei, Wu Bingze, Wei Yonggang)