How can farmers' professional cooperatives be brought to life?
In the height of summer, in Quyuan Town of Zigui County, the hometown of the great patriotic poet Qu Yuan, a scene of abundant harvest is unfolding: farm vehicles loaded with pigs, bamboo baskets on the rear racks of several motorcycles filled with free-range chickens about to be shipped to market, stretches of citrus, sweet corn, tea, chestnuts, vegetables and medicinal herbs spreading out like a green carpet, interwoven with the pink-walled, dark-tiled buildings with horse-head gables dotted along the orange groves at the foot of the hills and the crisscrossing country roads, forming a leisurely and pleasant “poetic countryside” scene.
In the local area there is a woman from elsewhere, not tall in stature, plainly dressed, who often chats with farmers in the local dialect about farming seasons, farming matters and rural affairs, her rosy face showing a pair of “dimples”; people call her “Sister Tian,” and she is Xiong Zongfen, accountant at the Quyuan Finance Office of the Zigui County Finance Bureau and a member of the ninth county committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Xiong Zongfen graduated from the Yichang Prefecture Finance and Economics School in 1989, and after graduation entered the office of the county finance bureau, taking up an “iron rice bowl.” On the day she started work, she said this: “I will wear two pairs of shoes well. First, I will wear the ‘high heels’ well, staying highly aligned with my superiors, emulating advanced role models, doing my own work well and creating work achievements; second, I will wear the ‘flat shoes’ well, going into villages and households more often to help the masses solve practical problems.”
In August 1990, she was assigned to work in the Xintan government, handling accounting for the Xintan government office, statistics for the economic committee, accounting for the economic committee and accounting for the Quyuan Finance Office.
⟧ In 2013, according to the division of duties within the office, she was put in charge of office internal affairs, fund accounting and cashiering for the finance office. During her work, she studied professional knowledge earnestly, and whenever she had spare time she would always take up the thick professional textbooks and never tire of studying them; sometimes she would stay up all night over a difficult problem until she fully understood it. In 2003 she passed the examination to become an assistant accountant. She was not only proficient in her own work, but also dared to uphold principles. Once, when reviewing reimbursement vouchers signed by leaders, she found that they actually fell outside the prescribed reimbursement scope, and she resolutely rejected the financial reimbursement voucher. After work hours, while some colleagues in the office went home to busy themselves with housework, she alone would pick up a rag every day to wipe dust, sweep the floor and turn off the lights in the office…… She often cleaned the public toilets and often weeded the flower beds. Apart from this, she most enjoyed chatting with some of the sisters about farming seasons, farming matters and rural affairs.
She kept in contact with extremely poor people, helped them formulate poverty-alleviation plans, implemented measures to escape poverty and become prosperous, did one or two practical things for them each year, and established a “I do practical things for the masses” ledger, helping poor households escape poverty and embark on the road to prosperity. Every time the government organized a “one-day charity donation” activity, she always took the lead in donating actively. One winter in 2013, she took the initiative to visit a farmer's home and chatted with a farmer's wife; because the farmer's family was in financial difficulty, they had not bought new clothes for the children for several years. Upon learning this, she went home and discussed it with her husband, then packed a large sack of the whole family's adults' and children's half-old clothes and sent it over. The good deeds of giving money and goods to people in difficulty were so many that even she herself could not remember how many times she had done them.
At the beginning of this year, she chatted about farming seasons, farming matters and rural affairs with the woman owner of a medicinal herb planting business in a farmers' professional cooperative, and they talked about some prominent problems reflected by farmers' professional cooperatives. Not many days later, she went with the comrades in charge of finance to the grassroots to conduct research, wrote a research report, and in her capacity as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference submitted to the second session of the ninth county committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference the proposal “Suggestions on Actively Guiding the Development of Farmers' Professional Cooperatives,” which pointed out: “First, we must do a good job in the registration and review of farmers' professional cooperatives; second, we must increase technical training, talent support and follow-up services for farmers' professional cooperatives; third, we must establish an inspection and assessment system.” Her suggestions received great attention from the main leaders of the finance bureau, who convened finance office meetings many times, set up a leading group for farmers' professional cooperatives, further strengthened leadership responsibility and implemented a responsibility system for those in charge.
She often went to farmers' professional cooperatives to provide financial guidance, teaching accountants hand in hand to learn their business, learn bookkeeping, learn to keep accounts or conduct classified accounting, and learn supervision and management, cultivating a group of outstanding enterprise management talents, so that 22 professional cooperatives and 11 family farms, including the Yangtze River Peach Leaf Orange Professional Cooperative of Quyuan Town, Zigui County, the Walnut Professional Cooperative of Puping Village, Quyuan Town, Zigui County, the Runjuheng Vegetable Professional Cooperative of Quyuan Town, Zigui County, and the Qingxinyuan Ecological Breeding Professional Cooperative of Zigui County, entered a virtuous cycle and basically achieved prosperity in both production and sales.
Xiong Zongfen was successively praised as an “advanced individual” by the Party committee and government of Quyuan Town, awarded the title of “advanced individual” by the Party group of the Zigui County Finance Bureau and the county finance bureau, awarded the title of “top ten public servants” by the county Party committee organization department in 2009, and in 2012 she was democratically elected by Quyuan Town as a member of the ninth county committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of Zigui County. Through more than 30 years of diligent and conscientious work, she practiced her promise with practical actions, devoted all her energy to township finance work and the cause of the town's economic and social development, and composed a song of striving life on an ordinary post.