Five Years of Forging Ahead - Innovation Helps Draw the Blueprint for Prosperity
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Kuduer Forestry Bureau has made poverty alleviation and prosperity the top priority of its work for people's livelihood. Taking the launch of activities to guide employees in increasing their incomes as a starting point, it has advanced step by step and steadily in areas such as changing mindsets, targeted measures, precise efforts, and industry-based poverty alleviation, leading employees and the masses to seek development and pursue prosperity, and with a precise brush it has painted a bold stroke on the vivid scroll of striving together for moderate prosperity in the forest region.
A Change in Mindset Opens Up a Broader World
Wang Zhijun was originally a disadvantaged employee of the Materials Supply Office of the Kuduer Forestry Bureau. In order to improve his family's impoverished situation, he persisted for more than 10 years on the entrepreneurial path of raising pigs, became a local "big pig farmer," and ultimately realized his dream of escaping poverty and becoming prosperous.
Li Ming, an employee of the Forest Pest Control Station, has been engaged in e-commerce for more than two years, mainly selling black fungus, slippery jack mushrooms, and other products cultivated by himself and his unit, allowing forest specialty products to catch the "online express" and be sold across the country.
Sun Lirong, a female employee of the Afforestation and Management Station, firmly believed in becoming prosperous through hard work. From an initial 26 sheep, she grew her flock to an annual stock of more than 300, with annual net income reaching more than 40,000 yuan, writing a song of praise in which women are not inferior to men...
In the Kuduer Forestry Bureau, there are too many examples to count of employees starting businesses on their own and achieving income growth and prosperity. In order to strengthen employees' awareness of "self-development and self-entrepreneurship," and to shift from "waiting, asking, and relying" to "I want to develop," the bureau stimulated the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of employees and the masses through activities such as employee forums, leadership seminars, presentations by model households, and major discussions with the theme "In carrying out activities for employees to increase income, what should I do?"
They also selected and promoted a group of under-forest economy experts, model households, and entrepreneurial leaders with high social recognition and visibility among employees and the masses, vigorously publicized their exemplary deeds, and strengthened employees' confidence and determination to develop the under-forest economy. They encouraged Party members and cadres to take the lead in developing the under-forest economy, forming a virtuous interactive pattern in which Party member cadres help disadvantaged households, model households help the masses, those who are better off help those who are less well off, and large households help small households.
Precise Measures Relieve People's Worries
Because the Kuduer Forestry Bureau was established early, it has many problems left over from history, employee wages are relatively low, and there are as many as more than 1,000 disadvantaged households. They adhered to emphasizing both "blood transfusion" and "blood production," and pursued both poverty alleviation and the fostering of aspiration. They scientifically classified types of disadvantaged households, applied measures according to each household, and prescribed the right remedy to ensure that policies were effective and that employees and the masses had the motivation to escape poverty and become prosperous.
For disadvantaged employees who became impoverished due to old age, weakness, illness, disability, accidental disasters, and other reasons, and who did not have the ability to develop the under-forest economy, they adopted "blood transfusion" methods such as long-term assistance, temporary assistance, leading cadres' "one helps one," "many help one," "Golden Autumn Student Aid," and "sending warmth" during the two festivals. At the same time, they gave full play to the functional role of the employee appeals center and the disadvantaged employee assistance center, providing employees with services such as living assistance and petition reception, and strictly enforced the approval and distribution procedures for all assistance and relief funds to ensure that funds were promptly delivered into the hands of the most disadvantaged groups of employees.
In the work of poverty alleviation and assistance, the bureau changed from past scattered assistance and sesame-sprinkling-style assistance to key assistance and precise assistance, using interest-free loans where they were most needed and giving play to the "blood production" function of industry-based poverty alleviation to help disadvantaged employees with entrepreneurial intentions become prosperous. Li Zhilin, an employee of the former Linlin Forest Farm, used interest-free loans provided by the forestry bureau to set up an edible fungus factory. Through snowballing development, it now has 6 edible fungus greenhouses with a total area of 3,000 sq m, cultivates more than 100,000 bags of fungus annually, and successfully registered the "Mengku Brand" trademark. During busy periods, it hires more than 30 disadvantaged employees and their family members to engage in edible fungus cultivation and picking, giving them work to do and money to earn.
Over the past 5 years, the bureau has issued 5.349 million yuan in interest-free loans to 415 employee households, and 99 disadvantaged employee households have already escaped poverty through developing the under-forest economy.
Breaking Out of the Cocoon and Transforming into a Butterfly, Playing a New Song
This year, the bureau has focused on building a diversified industrial pattern, striving to blaze a new path to prosperity of "breaking out of the cocoon and transforming into a butterfly."
They are developing the edible fungus industry, using the already built edible fungus greenhouse base to make the edible fungus industry bigger and stronger; promoting the construction of the sea buckthorn industry and the Huanhuncao base, expanding planting areas, forming scale, and making them new channels for employees and the masses to increase income and become prosperous; giving full play to the role of 6 industrial cooperatives to provide guidance in production, sales, and other information services for employees developing the under-forest economy; promoting the integrated development of the under-forest economy and information technology, and realizing the transformation of the sales model for mountain specialty products and local specialty agricultural products from the traditional practice of sitting and waiting for door-to-door purchasing to an "Internet Plus" sales model; focusing on developing forest tourism, encouraging and supporting employees in developing the individual economy and participating in tourism development, and using main resources and carrier advantages such as forest landscapes, forest air environment, and wild berries to cultivate and strengthen new business forms such as forest tourism and forest health care.
They also support employees in becoming prosperous through the form of an under-forest economy cooperative operation system. Eight units have already participated in the cooperative operation system, with nearly 100 employees taking part. The Ailin Management and Protection Station, by means of pooled funds and shareholding, built a beef cattle breeding base and a pig breeding farm, and employee shareholders can receive dividends every year. At present, the breeding industry in Ailin has entered a track of sound development and has broken into the market. Speaking of how to broaden the path to prosperity in the future, the person in charge of the management and protection station said with full confidence: "If we do it, we must do it well and let everyone earn money. We will also gradually expand the breeding scale and strive to let more employees benefit from it." (Chen Xiaolin)