Cooperative shares solve the development dilemma of hollow-shell villages
Recently, reporters came to Ande Village, Chadian Town, Wuding County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, deep in the mountains. Zhang Wenhai, secretary of the village Party branch, stood in the courtyard of the village breeding base, pointed to more than 300 plump large-eared yellow goats and proudly told reporters: “For many years, our village collective's income was basically zero. At the end of 2013, with the support of the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee, we used 300,000 yuan of industrial support funds secured with help from higher levels as shares, and together with large breeding households and farmers in the village jointly contributed 1.05 million yuan to build a modern large-eared yellow goat breeding base. Now the value of the base has reached more than 4 million yuan, the village collective has received more than 20,000 yuan in dividends, achieving a breakthrough from zero in Ande Village's collective economic income, and the villagers who bought shares also received considerable dividends. It is ‘cooperative shares’ that led the villagers onto the road to prosperity.”
Ande Village's new changes are a microcosm of Yunnan Province's work on strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares.”
Village collectives, large planting and breeding households, and farmers jointly contribute funds, turning “direct investment” into “cooperative shares”
Yunnan, combining frontier, ethnic, mountainous and impoverished characteristics in one, is one of the main battlegrounds of the national poverty alleviation campaign. Among the 14 contiguous poverty-stricken areas identified by the state, Yunnan Province involves four contiguous poverty-stricken areas - the Wumeng Mountain area, the rocky desertification area, the western Yunnan border mountain area and the Yunnan Tibetan area - covering a total of 91 counties, the largest number in the country. For many years, rural grassroots areas in Yunnan Province have faced this dilemma: due to backward economic development, more than half of the province's economically weak villages and hollow-shell villages with annual village collective income below 10,000 yuan, accounting for 55% of the province's total, and in some areas even exceeding 60%.
How should village collective economy develop? How can the service capacity of village-level organizations be improved? How can the current situation of village-level Party organizations having “no money to do things” be solved? In early 2013, during Yunnan's province-wide “four groups” education activities and the implementation of the system of cadres directly contacting the masses, the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee secured 300,000 yuan in industrial development support funds for each village in Chadian Town, Wuding County, Chuxiong Prefecture, its contact point. How to give full play to the effectiveness of these project funds became a very practical issue. Liu Weijia, member of the Standing Committee of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and head of the Organization Department, conceived the idea of strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares,” creatively proposing the working approach of “dual advancement” of poverty alleviation and development and grassroots Party building across entire townships.
Under the guidance of the Organization Department of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, Ande Village established the Ande Planting and Breeding Professional Cooperative's large-eared yellow goat breeding base by combining three methods: contribution of 300,000 yuan in industrial support funds, contribution by large planting and breeding households, and contribution by other farmers, turning the past “direct investment” into the present “share cooperation.”
At the end of 2013, on the basis of the Chadian pilot, the Organization Department of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and eight departments including the Provincial Department of Finance jointly issued a document requiring organization, development and reform, finance, agriculture, forestry, water resources, industry and commerce, and poverty alleviation departments at the provincial, municipal and county levels to each select 1 village committee as a pilot, clarifying the sources of shares, targets for shareholding, forms of cooperation and operating mechanisms, taking an exploratory step in strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares.”
“Cooperative shares” give village collectives long-term returns
Clean cement roads connect every household, streetlights are installed on both sides of the roads, and all kinds of musical instruments hang on the walls of the spacious cultural and sports activity room. This is the current appearance of Shishan Village, Shishan Town, Wuding County.
“Our village committee buys rural cooperative medical care fees, rural critical illness insurance and pension insurance for the village's 1,255 villagers every year, and elderly people over 70 can also receive subsidies. This is the direct benefit brought by the income from cooperative shares. In the past, the village had no money, and Party organizations had the will but not the means to do things for villagers. Through carrying out cooperative share work, the problem of the village collective having ‘no money to do things’ has been solved.” Shao Jian, secretary of the Shishan Village Party branch, told reporters excitedly.
Since the end of last year, Shishan Village has integrated and utilized funds, resources and assets within the village, using 950,000 yuan of accumulated village collective funds as the share capital of “cooperative shares.” Through the “village committee + company” model, it established a comprehensive development service company, bringing 27 farmhouse entertainment businesses and 4 mineral water plants originally operated by the village committee under the management of the comprehensive development service company, contracting them to villagers and individual businesses, bringing more than 2 million yuan in income to the village collective. At the end of the year, it plans to distribute more than 1 million yuan to villagers, with each person able to receive 800 yuan.
With the smooth advancement of the work of strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares,” all 16 prefectures and cities in Yunnan established leading bodies headed by prefecture and city Party committee organization departments, and formulated implementation work plans. Among them, Honghe Prefecture coordinated 7.86 million yuan as “share capital” invested in 46 villages to carry out “cooperative shares”; the 12 counties and cities of Dali Prefecture used the 1 million yuan arranged each year to support village-level collective economic development as special fiscal funds; Longling County and Tengchong County in Baoshan City each invested 1.5 million yuan from county-level finance to establish “red funds”; Wuding County combined “cooperative shares” with “red credit” and “red farms” for exploration together…… Yunnan found an effective way to solve the weakness of village collective economy.
The Organization Department of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Rural Credit Union collected and investigated demand conditions in various places, and in combination with the opinions of organization departments at prefecture and city levels, made unified planning and overall arrangements, and formulated the planned task of issuing 1 billion yuan in “red credit” in 2014. At present, all 16 prefectures and cities in the province have opened “red credit” business, with a cumulative total of 466 million yuan of “red credit” issued, supporting a total of 6,863 Party members and masses in rural areas to start businesses and become prosperous, with per capita income increasing by about 15,000 yuan.
On July 11 this year, at the province-wide video research meeting on strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares,” Liu Weijia emphasized, “In Yunnan's work on strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through ‘cooperative shares,’ what is wanted is not equity rights, but the village collective's right to returns, and a long-term mechanism for collective economic income.”
When the collective has money, farmers can benefit, and grassroots Party building and economic construction achieve a win-win result
The implementation of “cooperative shares” promoted the development of village collective economy, and after the collective economy grew stronger, it in turn promoted the development of grassroots Party organizations.
In October 2013, Zhuangjiawei Community, Yanjiang Subdistrict, Qilin District, Qujing City, raised 100,000 yuan on its own, received 50,000 yuan in subdistrict subsidies, integrated 570,000 yuan in subsidy funds from environmental protection departments and 700,000 yuan in subsidy funds from the sewage treatment wetland project, and used 78 mu of collective fish ponds as “cooperative shares,” registering and establishing Qujing City Qilin District Beautiful Countryside Property Management Co., Ltd. Property management not only provided modern property management services for the community's new village, but also intensively operated the community farmers' collective resources, enabling previously separately leased farmland to be transferred externally in contiguous plots. The rental price per mu increased from 300 yuan to a maximum of 1,930 yuan, increasing farmland transfer returns for the people by more than 1.5 million yuan.
Fu Yurong, secretary of the Yanjiang Subdistrict Party Working Committee, introduced that when the collective has money, farmers can benefit. Community residents do not need to spend money on drinking water, and each resident group subsidizes 60 yuan per person per year to handle the new rural cooperative medical system for residents, and subsidizes 200 yuan per person for residents to buy pension insurance. The collective economy, relying on “cooperative shares,” has continuously developed and grown, continuously boosting the building of service-oriented Party organizations, enhancing the affinity and cohesion of Party organizations, and achieving interactive win-win results between rural Party building and economic construction.
At the same time, the Organization Department of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee consistently treated strengthening the construction of village “two committees” teams and village affairs supervision committees as an important task in cooperative share work, selecting the best and strongest responsible persons for village-level Party organizations, vigorously sending executive secretaries, new countryside construction instructors and others to hold temporary posts or serve in collective economy “hollow-shell villages” and “weak villages,” striving to drive the overall improvement of the ability and quality of village-level cadre teams in advancing “cooperative shares” work.
As strengthening the foundation and benefiting farmers through “cooperative shares” goes deeper, Yunnan's rural development is changing with each passing day. Up to now, a total of 1,468 villages (groups) and communities across the province have launched “cooperative shares” work, with more than 1,600 projects launched, involving more than 300 million yuan in funds (including assets and resources converted into shares at discounted value). A total of more than 1,200 units at the provincial, prefecture and county levels have taken the lead in carrying it out, with more than 800 using funds and projects as shares, and more than 500 using assets and resources such as land, forest land and infrastructure as shares. A large number of weak villages and hollow-shell villages have been injected with fresh blood, stimulating the vitality of rural reform and development across the province.