Lessons for industrial poverty alleviation from a skilled walnut grower
??? Cut down 28 trees, earn over 7,000 yuan more -- what a skilled walnut grower teaches us about industrial poverty alleviation
Xinhua News Agency reporter Lyu Mengqi
Xin Jiaoyuan, a walnut grower in Shanxi Province, ignored his wife's firm opposition 4 years ago and chopped 28 ordinary walnut trees -- as thick as a rice bowl and bearing fruit -- in half at the trunk, grafting on high-quality, high-yield walnut varieties. Two years later, Xin Jiaoyuan, who lives in Zhaizishang Village, Longjiao Township, Shilou County, Lyuliang City, harvested 420 jin of dried nuts from his new-variety walnut trees and sold them for nearly 9,000 yuan, more than 7,000 yuan more than he used to earn from ordinary walnuts.
By contrast, Xin Yunping, a poor household in the same village, planted nearly 20 mu of ordinary walnuts; more than 2 mu had entered full bearing, yet he sold them for only a little over 1,300 yuan. Some villagers with 7 mu of walnuts earned just over 1,000 yuan in a whole year.
Zhaizishang Village is flanked by mountains on two sides, and more than 160 households live against the slopes. To alleviate poverty, the local government began more than 10 years ago to support villagers in planting walnuts. But today, although more than 3,000 mu of walnuts have covered the village's hills, the poverty-alleviation results are far from ideal. Only Xin Jiaoyuan not only put 3 children through university but also became a walnut expert, earning 30,000 to 40,000 yuan a year just by grafting walnuts for others. Xin Jiaoyuan said he was never a poor household; what he relied on was walnut-growing technology.
At the entrance to Xin Jiaoyuan's home is a small walnut orchard covering 1.2 mu, with 28 trees in total. "What we used to grow were ordinary walnuts: big in size, small in kernel, thick and hard in shell, and they couldn't fetch a price." But Xin Jiaoyuan felt this was a way to survive, and that he could not let ignorance turn a way out into a dead end. With this in mind, 7 years ago Xin Jiaoyuan gritted his teeth, packed his bags and left home to learn walnut growing. Three years later, as soon as he returned home, he "beheaded" the 28 ordinary walnut trees.
Xin Jiaoyuan said: "My wife was firmly against it at the time. The trees, as thick as a rice bowl, had grown for 10 years and were just at the fruiting stage; who wouldn't feel heartbroken to cut them in half at the trunk?" But he understood in his heart that although cutting the trees meant temporarily losing income, once the grafted new varieties bore fruit, the returns would increase markedly.
Last year, Longjiao Township specifically established a walnut association and hired Xin Jiaoyuan as its president, to teach fruit growers cultivation techniques and lead more than 30 people in carrying out improvement and efficiency-boosting work on 1,000 mu of walnuts across the township.
Because he is responsible for grafting 260 mu of villagers' walnut trees, Xin Jiaoyuan is very afraid of making a mistake, and every few days he cannot resist going up the hill to take a look. Gazing at the expanse of bowl-thick walnut trees cut in half at the trunk before him, 57-year-old Xin Jiaoyuan told the reporter: "In another 10-plus days, when the buds grow a little more, these walnut trees can be grafted."
"All the varieties we are grafting now are high-quality ones such as Gift No. 2 and Liaohe No. 2. Small trees need only 3 to 5 buds grafted, while large trees need 20 to 30 buds, and the cost is 2 yuan per bud," Xin Jiaoyuan told the reporter. The grafted new varieties can bear fruit in the 2nd year and reach full bearing in 8 years, with 1 tree producing 30-40 jin of dried nuts; but traditional varieties take nearly 10 years to bear fruit and 15 years to reach full bearing, with 1 tree yielding only 10-plus jin, and some cannot even produce 10 jin, while the price is also considerably lower than that of the new varieties.
To reduce losses for poor farmers, the Longjiao Township government subsidises farmers 100 yuan per mu of walnut land and also provides part of the walnut planting insurance. "Our township has more than 30,000 mu of walnuts in total, 3 mu per person on average. To give full play to the poverty-alleviation effect, we must guide ordinary people to change their thinking and carry out comprehensive grafting and improvement," said Guo Yongdong, Party secretary of Longjiao Township.
Similar problems exist not only in Longjiao Township but throughout the entire Lyuliang region. Lyuliang is located in the loess broken plateau and gully area, and still has 480,000 poor people; it is the "hardest bone to gnaw" in Shanxi's poverty alleviation campaign. To increase farmers' income, Lyuliang City vigorously developed the walnut industry a few years ago, expanding by 500,000 mu each year. But while the quantity went up, walnut varieties became very mixed, with some 1 mu plots containing 6 or 7 varieties.
"One variety can sell for 10-plus yuan per jin, but mixed together it can only sell for 5 or 6 yuan." Chen Linqiang, director of the Lyuliang City Poverty Alleviation Office, said that because walnuts of different varieties differ in size and shell thickness, mixing them together makes them very hard to process: either the small ones are not fully peeled during hulling, or the thin-shelled ones are scorched during drying. So mixed walnuts fetch a low price, and no one is willing to buy them.
In response to this phenomenon, Lyuliang City is currently carrying out quality improvement and efficiency enhancement of 2 million mu of dried-fruit economic forest, but there is currently a severe shortage of local talent who understand fruit-tree technology in each county. Although Shilou County's Longjiao Township has now established a dedicated walnut association, the only person truly capable of handling the work is Xin Jiaoyuan alone. There is no shortage of related training, but the results fall short of expectations.
Xin Jiaoyuan said: "Everyone understands that poverty alleviation must first help people's minds, but the key is how to make the help effective. Quite a lot of training has been carried out, and the people invited are experts, but after listening, ordinary people are still the same as before, simply because they have no foundation and cannot understand." When he learned techniques back then, his master taught him hand by hand in the field, so it was easy to pick up. Therefore, helping people's minds must also be down-to-earth, and field teaching should be vigorously promoted. "Take walnut grafting, for example: it must be completed within a few dozen seconds, otherwise the cut surface oxidises and lowers the survival rate. If you just sit indoors and talk about it (without mastering the key techniques), talking is useless."