Bi Qinghe gets rich through the edible mushroom industry base
On April 18, this writer saw Bi Qinghe, once a poor household, and his co-workers busy loading and unloading mushroom sticks at the edible mushroom industry base in Qinggang County. They were talking and laughing, with happy smiles all over their faces.
Bi Qinghe, 50 years old this year, is from the fourth village group of Xinmin Village, Qinggang Town. Originally a family of four, they lived fairly well off thanks to 25 mu of farmland and the income Bi Qinghe earned working away from home. But misfortune struck without warning. In 2012, Bi Qinghe's wife fell seriously ill, and the heart stent surgery alone used up all the family's savings and left them in debt. His wife's illness required long-term medication and someone to care for her, so Bi Qinghe could not go out to work and earn money, and the family's two children were at an age when they needed money. The pressure of life suddenly left Bi Qinghe, who had always been strong and optimistic, gasping for breath, and the family fell into hardship.
In 2015, the edible mushroom industry base, a poverty alleviation project supported by the Provincial Audit Office, was established in Xinmin Village. The base adopted a diversified business model of "leading enterprise + cooperative + farmers + academy of agricultural sciences + association," took "whoever invests benefits" as its basic principle, and adopted a management mechanism of "unified infrastructure construction, unified deep processing, unified technical guidance, unified product sales, and benefit distribution by item," striving to build a county-level edible mushroom industry culture and drive the industry to develop rapidly and well. In terms of the forms of farmer participation, farmers took part in the base's production, operation and management through methods such as "dividends from land contributed as shares, income from land transfer, decentralized contracted operation, and employment at the base." Relying on the project's strong carrying capacity, it ensured increased production at the base, higher incomes for farmers, greater efficiency for enterprises, and win-win results for all parties. This gave Bi Qinghe, who could not go out to work, hope in life.
In May 2015, Bi Qinghe transferred his 25 mu of land to the cooperative. Not only did he receive a land transfer fee of 450 yuan per mu, but he also enjoyed share dividends, and he usually did odd jobs at the cooperative to increase his income. Bi Qinghe treasured the opportunity to work and earn money at the cooperative all the more, and he gave his all to every task. Bi Qinghe was responsible in his work, and he cared even more meticulously for his ailing wife, never abandoning her. Under his careful care, his wife soon got better, and the couple went to the base together to do odd jobs. In 2015, the couple did odd jobs for 5 months, and the income from odd jobs alone reached 25,000 yuan.
With something to look forward to in life, Bi Qinghe was even more motivated. In July 2016, the base implemented a contracting preferential policy for poor households. In addition to providing free technical guidance, it also gave mushroom bags to poor households on credit, sold the products in a unified way, and freed poor households from worries. Bi Qinghe knew the opportunity to get rich had come, and he contracted 4 greenhouses at the low price of 1,250 yuan each. When the accounts were settled at the end of the year, Bi Qinghe's family had a net income of 100,000 yuan in 2016, which not only paid off their debts and lifted them out of poverty, but also set them on the road to prosperity.
Bi Qinghe said that poverty alleviation policies are good now, and as long as one is willing to work hard, under the care of the Party and the government, anyone can escape poverty and become well-off. Speaking of the future, Bi Qinghe plans to contract several more greenhouses, expand the scale, and help his whole family realize the dream of moderate prosperity as soon as possible!