Niu Zong Chen Guangche Welcomes the Spring of Prosperity
Chen Guangche is tending to his water buffalo.
On April 16, by the riverside at the foot of Xianshangang in Hetang Town, Gutian County, a herd of water buffalo were either grazing on green grass or lying in the mud resting, while "cowherd" Chen Guangche was carefully grooming the lead buffalo "Da Hui".
"Da Hui is the tireless model worker of our family. When I'm busy, I rely entirely on it to lead the herd to forage." As if understanding Old Chen's words, "Da Hui" raised its massive head and nuzzled against its owner's shoulder again and again, making Chen Guangche laugh heartily.
Chen Guangche, 49 years old this year, is a farmer from Xianshan Village. With the help of the national targeted poverty alleviation policy and the resident cadres, he, who had spent all year trailing behind buffalo, had unknowingly become a locally well-known cattle-raising expert and a model household for poverty alleviation. The villagers affectionately called him "Niu Zong" (Boss Buffalo). He not only threw off the label of impoverished household but also built a two-story house.
A Life of Hardship --
The "Iron Man" Bowed by Burden
Xianshan Village is located in the western part of Hetang Town, 3 km from the town center, with beautiful scenery and abundant resources. In particular, the simple and honest folkways make it a widely known civilized village.
In the past, whenever villagers mentioned Chen Guangche, they would always shake their heads and sigh at his family's ill fate. When Chen Guangche was just over one year old, his mother fell ill and passed away. For many years, he and his elderly, frail father Chen Kaiyuan depended on each other, living together in a humble ancestral home. Several years ago, his father, already in his eighties, developed an eye disease. Unable to afford treatment, he lost sight in one eye. The impoverished family circumstances scared away one young woman after another, and Chen Guangche remains unmarried to this day. Every day he not only had to rise early and stay up late to care for his father's daily needs, but also had to go out to do odd jobs to supplement the household income. The heavy burden of life had early on bent the back of this sturdy man.
Chen Guangche attended primary school for just over a year before dropping out. He returned home and began herding cattle for other families, and from then on he formed a bond with cattle. Chen Guangche said that on the first day he picked up the cattle whip, his father admonished him: "Diligence may not necessarily make you big money, but laziness will certainly leave you hungry." These words were deeply etched in his heart.
However, herding cattle for others could never lift him out of poverty. "At the end of the year, after calculating what I earned and subtracting expenses, there was almost nothing left." The tight circumstances made Chen Guangche feel bitter, and he always thought about carving out a path while he was still young.
In 1995, on someone's recommendation, Chen Guangche took out the little savings his family had and switched to raising the local specialty white-feathered mule ducks. Starting a new trade "midway" was no easy task. Due to reasons related to technology and sales channels, Chen Guangche's duck-raising path was full of stumbling blocks, but he gritted his teeth and persevered.
The hardest hurdle in raising ducks was disease prevention and control. Chen Guangche still remembers that in 2005, after ten years of raising ducks, he could be considered quite skilled, but even the best can make an oversight -- the duck flock was hit by an epidemic. Frantic with worry, he bought vaccines overnight from the town's animal husbandry station, and of the more than 200 ducks, he managed to save a few dozen. Not to mention the nearly 1,000 yuan spent on ducklings at the beginning of the year, he also owed more than 1,000 yuan in feed credit.
In February 2015, Chen Guangche's family was identified by Gutian County as a provincially registered impoverished household.
A Turn for the Better --
An "Old Trade" Paves the Road Out of Poverty
Since Gutian County launched its targeted poverty alleviation work, Chen Guangche's family has enjoyed various beneficial policies. The town also formulated a poverty alleviation plan tailored to his family's actual situation. Wu Pengju, director of the town's Forestry Public Security Police Station, was paired with Old Chen as his assistance partner. Old Chen's family life finally took a turn for the better.
Wu Pengju and Old Chen and his son put their heads together and decided to start with what Chen Guangche knew best -- raising cattle. First, Chen Guangche had raised cattle since childhood, so he had experience and basic disease prevention skills. Second, in recent years, with economic development, many villagers who could afford to had moved away, leaving more idle land. Most importantly, Xianshan Village had vast mountain fields and good water sources, which was exactly what cattle raising required, and the management did not demand heavy physical labor.
Through Wu Pengju's active efforts, in early 2016, Chen Guangche received 15,000 yuan in poverty alleviation funds from the county agricultural bureau, and with 5,000 yuan he raised himself, Old Chen bought his first batch of 3 calves. "Adding the two buffalo we already had, I instantly felt the home had come alive," said Old Chen. "At that time I was grinning from ear to ear. The targeted poverty alleviation policy gave me a great opportunity to escape poverty and become prosperous!"
From then on, Chen Guangche and his father raised cattle with dedication, working from sunrise to sunset. Meanwhile, Wu Pengju helped him apply for a second batch of central government special poverty alleviation funds of 5,000 yuan, and also brought in the town's animal husbandry experts to provide professional guidance, helping Chen Guangche use cattle raising -- this "old trade" -- to escape poverty and become prosperous.
Raising cattle is hard work. Every day he had to clean up manure, feed the cattle grass and water them, which took considerable effort. For more than a year, Chen Guangche ran back and forth between home and the cattle shed, crawling out of bed at 4 in the morning to cut grass, chop grass, feed the cattle and clean the pen. Whenever a cow got sick, he tended to it meticulously. As the herd continued to grow, the father and son began to have a stable income.
Talking about last year's happy events, Chen Guangche counted them on his fingers: The first was cattle raising -- through a circular farming model, he already had 16 water buffalo of various sizes, and at the end of last year he sold 5 calves for an income of more than 20,000 yuan. The second was renting out plow buffalo -- during the busy farming season, man and buffalo together cost 500 yuan per day, bringing in more than 10,000 yuan a year. The third was planting rice in his spare time, harvesting more than 500 kg of paddy a year, which solved the family's food grain needs. In just over a year, Old Chen's family threw off the label of impoverished household.
Good News Piles Up --
The "Old Cowherd" Has New Hopes
Now that his cattle-raising business has begun to take shape, Chen Guangche has set his sights further. "With the development of modern agriculture, the model of renting out man and buffalo to plow fields will surely be phased out. Next, I plan to continue expanding the scale of breeding, because the experts say that as people's living standards improve, beef consumption shows an increasing trend." Mid-conversation, Old Chen couldn't help but laugh. "Also, the cattle shed needs renovating, and free-range grazing needs to change to barn feeding. These all have to be done step by step."
At the end of last year, relying on income from cattle raising, Chen Guangche and his son built a two-story house of more than 70 sq m on the vacant land beside their old home. Seeing that they were about to leave behind the dilapidated old house they had lived in for decades, Old Chen was quite excited. Every evening after coming home and settling the cattle, he would always come here to busy himself for a while -- whether carrying a few loads of sand or applying a few trowels of cement, it made him feel especially grounded.
Chen Guangche's life has improved, but he has not forgotten to help the villagers around him. "Now that my life is better, I can't just think about my own enjoyment. I also have to help my neighbors who are struggling." Chen Guangche says this, and he does it too. Whenever other cattle raisers in the village come to him with questions, he always patiently answers them -- when to feed the cattle, how much to feed, keeping them warm when it's cold and ventilated and cooled when it's hot... He shares his cattle-raising experience with other impoverished households raising cattle, hoping they too can escape poverty soon.
When talking about his hopes for the future, Chen Guangche blushed with embarrassment. He said his greatest hope is to find a wife. In the past, because the family was poor, he lacked confidence and always felt he couldn't hold his head up in front of young women, so things kept getting delayed, and he remains alone to this day. Chen Guangche said that now that national policies are so good, he plans to establish a breeding cooperative, letting surrounding villagers buy shares and leading them to prosperity together. He firmly believes that with the Party's good policies, as long as he works hard, he will surely be able to settle down and build a family!