Lao Xie Escapes Poverty by Growing Peaches, from Poor Household to Technical Advisor

The Jiulian Mountains are green, and the clouds and mist stretch on endlessly. In Shangping Town, Lianping County, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, peach orchards stretch patch after patch, waves of delicate fragrance drift through the air, and red-tinged fruits weigh down every branch.

Xie Jieming, 55, of Xinzhen Village in Shangping Town, tilted his body, picked a large peach beaded with water droplets, rubbed off the fuzz with his clothes, and took a bite. It was truly crisp and sweet.

Shangping Town in Lianping County, nestled in the mountains, is the "Hometown of Chinese Eagle-Beak Honey Peaches." Yet Lao Xie, who only escaped poverty last year, had endured more than 20 years of hardship.

A car accident in 1989 cost Lao Xie half a foot. His foot was crippled, and the family's pillar of support had collapsed. Of his 3 children, the youngest was only 3 years old. What was he to do? "No choice but to tough it out!" Lao Xie had a stubborn streak in his bones.

He rolled tobacco, chopped wood, and ran a small shop. Though his leg and foot were inconvenient, Lao Xie threw himself into every job that could earn money. "Hard times always come to an end, and a person can't stay down forever," Lao Xie said.

In 2007, Lao Xie planted 36 eagle-beak honey peach trees on his family's dry land. Later, he planted a few more each year, until he had 70. He hoped that once the fruit was harvested, the money borrowed for his daughter's university education could gradually be paid back in full.

But with little experience, a lack of skills, and no idea how to tend them, when the peaches should have borne fruit after 4 years, Lao Xie was stunned: the branches had grown wild and dense, with no ventilation, yet barely any fruit had set.

Growing peaches isn't just about digging a hole and planting a sapling. Spraying, fertilizing, and pruning all require knowledge. Lao Xie said, "You have to understand the techniques."

He wanted to find an expert to ask, but had no connections and didn't know who to turn to.

As Guangdong's poverty alleviation and development work advanced steadily, in 2013, 173 households in Xinzhen Village, including Lao Xie's, were designated as poor households receiving key assistance. With eagle-beak honey peaches as the specialty, advancing the entire village through industry-based poverty alleviation became the working approach of the poverty alleviation team from Nanshan District, Shenzhen.

"What are you lacking?"

"Techniques!"

The poverty alleviation team quickly brought in peach-growing experts from the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The experts came to the village many times to give lectures and teach techniques hands-on in the fields. As of January 2016, various assisting units had provided labor skills training to 22,403 person-times in Lianping County.

Lao Xie said that fearing he wouldn't learn it all, he used a mobile phone to record the experts' entire lectures and watched them over and over again when he got home.

"This one is a vegetative branch, it needs to be cut; this one is a fruiting branch, it needs to be bent." Lao Xie gestured to the reporter. This is called the "branch-bending method." The trick is to bend without breaking. Bend it correctly, and it will bloom and bear fruit afterward. "If the experts hadn't taught us, how would we know this?"

Lao Xie said that after learning the new management techniques, each of his peach trees produced 100-150 jin more. Last year, the purchase price of eagle-beak honey peaches was 8.5 yuan per jin. "You do the math, how much more did I earn?"

With his daughter's help, Lao Xie also learned to use his phone to go online, looking up anything he didn't understand. The peach growers would sit together over tea whenever they had time, chatting about techniques and exchanging experience.

Lao Xie was diligent, loved to ponder things, and was quick to put his hands to work. Before long, his peach-growing skills became well known near and far.

A large grower on Xiaowudang Mountain in Jiangxi, adjacent to Shangping Town, sought out Lao Xie by reputation to tend his peach orchard, offering him 30 percent of the sales revenue. Not long after, another large grower in Neiguan Town, Lianping County, also hired Lao Xie for year-round planting guidance.

From a poor household to a widely known "technical advisor," Lao Xie truly never expected it.

In Xinzhen Village today, the eagle-beak honey peach planting area exceeds 1,000 mu, and the large, crisp, sweet peaches sell like hotcakes.

The villagers also gave many of the peach orchards neat, poetic names: Peach Blossom Destiny.

Every year in March, when the peach blossoms are in full bloom, Shangping Town's Peach Blossom Festival arrives. Following his daughter's advice, Lao Xie printed business cards and handed them out to tourists everywhere. "We use business cards too now," Lao Xie said excitedly.

Walking the road out of poverty, Lao Xie repays the villagers who helped him by passing on peach orchard management techniques. Whenever anyone has a problem growing peaches, Lao Xie teaches them how to handle it without holding anything back. Villager Xie Yuxiang said the folks nearby all call him "Master."

"One person escaping poverty doesn't count as escaping poverty. If we're going to prosper, we prosper together," Lao Xie said.