A poor household got rich by raising cattle, and he seized two opportunities

"Wu Lin is doing great!"

"Raising livestock at home beats going out to work by far."

Recently, in Gaozhai Village, Gaolong Town, Yanshi City, the story of Wang Wulin, a poor household, getting rich by raising cattle has become a frequent topic of conversation among the villagers.

Gaozhai Village is located in the southwest of Gaolong Town. It is a provincially designated poor village and also an old revolutionary base village. In recent years, after the village's land was transferred to large-scale operators, many villagers increased their income by working elsewhere.

Seeing his fellow villagers go out one after another to earn money, Wang Wulin felt an itch in his heart. In his view, going out to work might be the best way to bid farewell to poverty.

But fate had other plans. Wang Wulin suffers from severe lumbar disc herniation. While doing odd jobs away from home, he often had to come back to care for his ailing wife. After deducting living expenses and the costs of medical treatment and medicine, he simply could not save any money.

Gaozhai Village has a total of 84 registered poor households with 304 people. To comprehensively win the battle against poverty, the village carefully planned and adapted measures to local conditions, implementing a science-and-technology poverty alleviation project for Landrace-Large White-Duroc crossbred pig farming and a greenhouse vegetable planting industry poverty alleviation project, and actively carrying out e-commerce entrepreneurship training and more, making every effort to help poor households escape poverty at an early date.

In October last year, Wang Xiaoyi, Party branch secretary of Gaozhai Village, found Wang Wulin and said he had brought him a wealth-generating project: "Each poor household can receive 4 Landrace-Large White-Duroc crossbred pigs for free, and at the end of one breeding cycle they can earn several thousand yuan."

It turned out that the village applied for 300,000 yuan in higher-level science-and-technology poverty alleviation funds and implemented the Landrace-Large White-Duroc crossbred pig breeding promotion project. The project distributed 336 piglets in two batches, adopting three methods: poor households raising them themselves, raising them jointly, and raising them on behalf of others. It was expected to market 300 pigs annually, with annual returns of 150,000 yuan, increasing each poor household's income by an average of 1,744 yuan.

Calculating the big picture and the small details, Wang Wulin felt warm inside.

And so, Wang Wulin brought home 4 small piglets from the village committee. Not long ago, the pigs Wang Wulin raised were ready for market, and he earned 5,000 yuan.

Wang Wulin's second opportunity to escape poverty and get rich was one he found himself.

Not long after he started raising pigs, Wang Wulin began making calculations in his head again: "Raising only pigs brings limited income. I used to raise cattle on the production team. Why not give it a try?"

But where would the money come from?

Last year, the Yanshi City Poverty Alleviation Mutual Aid Fund was established, with financial poverty alleviation funds deposited in banks as guarantee money, using a multiplier to provide project loans to poor households. The government subsidizes a large portion of the interest to support poor households in developing industries and escaping poverty at an early date.

The mutual aid fund established branch associations in all 20 key poor villages in Yanshi City, and the Gaozhai branch association was one of them. In Gaozhai Village, all poor households are members of the mutual aid association, and Wang Wulin became one of the beneficiaries.

He scraped together more than 10,000 yuan from various sources, and through the village mutual aid branch association, borrowed 50,000 yuan from the Postal Savings Bank, then bought 4 calves from a neighboring village.

"Now the poverty alleviation policies are so good, I will definitely work hard, and by the end of the year I am sure to escape poverty," Wang Wulin said full of confidence.

They say cattle should be raised scientifically these days. Wang Wulin steeled himself, used the money he earned from raising pigs to buy a small grass-cutting machine, and spent all the rest on cattle feed.

"My 4 cattle are weighed every month. In one month they can gain nearly 100 jin, and in a few more months they can be marketed. One head can earn several thousand yuan." Looking at his cattle, Wang Wulin himself started talking big.

Wang Wulin did the math for himself again: raising cattle at home, he could take care of his wife and also work in the village's grape fields, earning at least 30,000 yuan a year.

"Now my eldest son has already married. I plan to build another cattle shed, buy some cows, and keep the calves for breeding." For the future, Wang Wulin has his own plans: raise more cattle, earn more money, and hold his youngest son's wedding sooner.

Nowadays, Wang Wulin cuts weeds and hauls straw near the village every day, riding an old three-wheeled motorcycle back and forth between the fields and the cattle yard. Though he gets busier and busier, life holds more and more promise.