Growing selenium-enriched garlic on order, Wang Guoxin escapes poverty in two years
These days, Wang Guoxin, a farmer in Huangtan Village, Ledu District, Haidong City, Qinghai Province, is patiently waiting to sign a garlic sales order with a garlic deep-processing company in the district called Enlu Biotechnology Company. In fact, Wang Guoxin has been supplying garlic to this company for 3 years already, so they are old acquaintances, but every time he does not have a signed order firmly in hand, Wang Guoxin never feels at ease.
A few years ago, Wang Guoxin was desperately poor, barely supporting his child in university with the meager income from farming and odd jobs. In 2014, the district poverty alleviation bureau acted as a matchmaker, connecting him with a garlic deep-processing company in the county so that he could supply garlic to the company on an order basis. From then on, Wang Guoxin began to focus on managing his family's 3 mu of garlic fields. Two years later, Wang Guoxin's family escaped poverty. Last year alone, Wang Guoxin's garlic sales revenue was 29,700 yuan.
Ledu District of Haidong City has a long tradition of growing garlic, and is best known for its purple-skin garlic. In addition, the area's unique selenium-enriched soil has added yet another layer of gold to this already famous garlic. However, due to factors such as price fluctuations in the garlic market in recent years, local farmers' enthusiasm for growing garlic has not been high, and the planting area once shrank. Selenium-enriched garlic encountered a hurdle on its way to becoming an industry that enriches farmers.
Mei Jianglong, director of the Ledu District Poverty Alleviation Bureau, who has been pondering how to do a good job in industrial poverty alleviation, is also very clear about the difficulties encountered in the development of the selenium-enriched garlic industry. "To make the selenium-enriched garlic industry into a poverty alleviation industry, we have a very good foundation for development, but what we lack is an effectively extended industrial chain, and what we are short of is a leading enterprise capable of driving industrial development," Mei Jianglong said.
In 2014, with the support of poverty alleviation funds, the Ledu District Selenium-enriched Garlic Industrial Park was completed, and Enlu Biotechnology Company, a garlic deep-processing enterprise, was brought in. Through the "enterprise + farmers + base" model, the selenium-enriched garlic industry was rebuilt, overcoming this major hurdle on the road of its development. In order to reawaken farmers' enthusiasm for growing garlic, the government and enterprises jointly proposed a response strategy of free seed supply, free technical guidance, order-based purchasing, and fixed-income dividends for precisely targeted poor households.
The reason Wang Guoxin wanted to focus on managing his family's garlic fields was, first, to escape poverty as soon as possible by growing garlic, and second, because he had truly felt the concrete benefits. He counted the accounts on his fingers for the reporter: garlic seed for one mu of land costs about 3,000 yuan, but they provide the seed for free, so that cost is saved; through scientific planting, the yield per mu can increase by about 1,000 jin, and increased production means increased income; with order-based purchasing, the price is even higher than the market price. Compared with the situation in previous years when following the market blindly did not necessarily bring in money, these things have given everyone confidence. If they still were not enthusiastic, that would be impossible.
After several years of development, the selenium-enriched garlic deep-processing product "selenium-enriched black garlic" from the industrial park has already been sold to Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and other places, and demand still exceeds supply. Company general manager Chen Liang told the reporter: "As the garlic market improves and the company's deep-processing product selenium-enriched black garlic sells well, local farmers' enthusiasm for growing garlic has begun to gradually recover. In 2016, the district's planting area increased by more than 2,000 mu compared with 2015, and it is estimated that it will continue to increase this year."
Today, more than 3,000 households in Ledu District, like Wang Guoxin, have partnered with enterprises, including 905 poor households. Making the selenium-enriched garlic industry into a poverty alleviation industry and an industry that enriches farmers is just around the corner.