Chinese villages team up for poverty alleviation through tea planting
By Wan Xiubin, People’s Daily
Over 20 tea pickers waving
their hands around lines of dozen-inch-high tea plants and taking the fresh tea
leaves into their pack baskets – that is a late-spring scene observed from the
top of a lush mountain in Guzhang county, central China’s Hunan province where
the lands were once incredibly barren and empty.
Similar scenes can also be
observed in Qingchuan county of Sichuan province, as well as Pu’an and Yanhe
counties of Guizhou province, and it all owes to the generous assistance
offered by Huangdu village of Anji county, east China’s Zhejiang province which
donated 19 million tea seedlings to 34 impoverished villages in the above four
counties in the past two years.
These white tea seedlings,
planted on around 358 hectares of land, have brought hope of a better life to
the recipient counties.
The 34 impoverished villages in
the four counties were chosen as recipients because they have suitable
precipitation, temperature, soil and elevation for growing white tea plants,
and it was a decision made by the technicians from the Tea Research Institute
with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Zhejiang Tea Group who
traveled tens of thousands of kilometers to central and western China and
conducted three field investigations in June, 2018.
They received the donation in
October, 2018. Wang Yongming, Party chief of Qingping village in Qingchuan
county, recalled the busy day when the first batch of one million seedlings
arrived in three refrigerated trucks, saying that the saplings were immediately
planted after they were unloaded by hundreds of earnest villagers.
Guzhang county’s Wengcao
village also cherishes the saplings very much. “We organized technical training
for all corn growers in the village to familiarize them with tea planting,”
said Ou Sanren, a cadre of the village.
By establishing a cooperative,
carrying out land transfer and distributing shares of the cooperative to
planters based on their planting performances, the tea planting industry
attracted more and more villagers in Wencao.
However, the tea seedlings planted
in Guzhang county were struck by several natural disasters. In the winter of
2018, the county was hit by a heavy snow rarely seen in southern China, resulting
in partial damage of the plants. Unfortunately, the replanted seedlings were
once again destroyed by the torrential rain pours in July the following year.
“Anji county soon sent
technicians to help us. They visited the damaged tea gardens and helped farmers
rebuild their planting business,” Ou said, adding that a total of 300,000 tea
seedlings were replanted after the two disasters.
As the benefactor, Anji county
has continuously strengthened follow-up assistance and technical guidance to
the recipients. Over the past more than two years, it has sent 275 technicians
in 42 batches to Hunan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces.
Huangdu village, the major
force of the assistance, sent 35 skilled tea planters who made a total of 115 trips
to the recipients for giving training on planting and management. Some of the
technicians even offered on-site technical guidance for more than half a year.
Under the meticulous care of all
sides, the tea seedlings have firmly taken root, bringing hope to impoverished
locals for reducing poverty and increasing income. As the plants are currently
yielding the first batch of tea leaves, the hope has been turned into reality.
Watching the shiny green tea
leaves in her tea garden, 40-year-old Long Xingmei from Wengcao village showed
a joyful face.
Long’s husband works outside of
the village, which leaves the woman in a difficult situation – she has to take
care of her child, her paralyzed elder brother, and her septuagenarian mother,
alone. As a result, her family suffers dire poverty.
Fortunately, the white tea
seedlings have brought hope to the family. Contracting her family’s land on the
mountain to a tea cooperative, Long now earns 3,600 yuan a year. Her mother,
who is hale and hearty, also works a part-time job at the cooperative and makes
about 8,000 yuan every year.
“We became a shareholder of the
cooperative, and we will surely get rid of poverty this year!” Long said.
45-year-old Tan Hua’ai in
Tunshang village, Digua township, Pu’an county is another beneficiary of the
tea seedlings as her family shook off poverty this March. The planting area of
white tea in the county has reached 133 hectares, benefiting 2,577 people from 862
impoverished households. The average income generated by tea planting stands at
4,659 yuan per household.
The tea planting business has
more stories to tell about poverty alleviation.
On March 12, 31 sets of tea
dryers donated by Anji Yuanfeng Tea Machinery Co., Ltd. were assembled in Yanhe
county. “The machines could process 350 kilograms of high-quality dry tea
leaves in a day, which largely improved our efficiency,” said Zhang Yong, head
of a local agricultural cooperative, adding that the dried tea leaves are delivered
to tea companies in Zhejiang for sale, so the villagers don’t have to worry
about sale and marketing.
The processing and distribution
of the tea leaves had been taken good care of by Zhejiang when it signed the
donation agreement. Huangdu village reached a deal with the Zhejiang Tea Group
which agreed to distribute all the tea under the poverty alleviation program
and registered a trademark.
As a sustainable poverty
alleviation method that helps locals develop industries, the tea seedlings from
Anji are driving development on a wider range.
So far, Pu’an has planted 716.8
hectares of white tea, and is planning to develop a comprehensive tea business
together with green tea and black tea plantation. Yanhe, planting 335 hectares
of white tea, is striving to make tea panting a pillar industry that propels
the county’s poverty alleviation.
Ou compares white tea as a cash
cow, saying that his village is currently integrating local natural and
cultural resources in an attempt to combine the tea business with tourism.
“Our village received 4,000
tourists last summer and is witnessing increasing popularity,” Ou disclosed.
Wengcao village in Guzhang county, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao
Autonomous Prefecture in central China’s Hunan province is home to more than
800 redisents from 180 households. It is a village of Miao ethnic group. It
picks the first batch of tea leaves this spring. Photo by Chen Bisheng,
People’s Daily Online
Chinese villages team up for poverty alleviation through tea planting
Reviewed by PEOPLES MAIL
on
04:02
Rating:
No comments: