Drive away Zhu Bajie, and finally join forces at Huaguo Mountain

In Qingshuitang Village, Jiangtang Town, there are 100 mu of fertile selenium-rich land, a group of diligent and hardworking honest villagers, and a village cadre who has the people's interests at heart. They have opened up wasteland, grown nursery stock, run a sawmill, and raised pigs, cattle and sheep in pens. Now, they are preparing to march toward becoming a major fruit village, planting fruit saplings one by one on the village land to create their own "Huaguo Mountain."

Recently, a reporter saw in Qingshuitang Village that at the site of a former livestock farm, there was already a bare expanse, with yellow earth churning on the ground. Village director Jin Hongwei told the reporter that after this livestock farm was demolished, the land was reclaimed, and when the time comes this plot will be put back into use for developing and planting crops. It is understood that Qingshuitang Village has a total of 10 livestock farmers, with about 5,000 pigs, accounting for more than half of the entire Jiangtang Management Office.

Sell 5,000 head of "Bajie," plant a field full of "money trees"

Villager Jin Xuetao is the farmer in Qingshuitang Village who raises the most pigs. From losing money a few years ago to making a profit now, he has gradually gotten on track on the road of pig farming. Recently, upon learning that the government was going to demolish small pig farms, he was extremely worried. He still has two children at home whose schooling costs money, and he did not know how to deal with these several hundred pigs. Like Jin Xuetao, after the village farmers learned that the pig farms they relied on for their livelihood were going to be demolished, everyone's mood was very low. In order to comfort them, Jin Hongwei visited every household every day, did ideological work with them, and promised them that he would help solve their livelihood problems.

Jin Hongwei is 44 years old this year. He has served as director in Qingshuitang Village for fifteen years, and is currently in his fifth term. Over so many years, Jin Hongwei has always been anxious for the urgent needs of the whole village's people and has sought to get things done for them. Whatever issue any family had, he would consider it for them and make decisions on their behalf. This time, facing the whole village's "great difficulty," would he be stumped by it? "Of course not. I already thought of a way out for everyone long ago, letting them all follow me in growing fruit. There is no need to fear having nothing to eat." Jin Hongwei said with great confidence. Thinking of a solution so quickly showed that he was quite resourceful. "Actually, it was also a coincidence. This matter has to start from the beginning of the year."

After the Chinese New Year this year, several young men from the village who had previously worked in Yongkang, Yiwu and other places expressed their difficulties to Jin Hongwei. "They told me that the factories where they had worked had closed because of the economic downturn. They all lost their jobs and had no income. After returning to the village, they did not know what they could do," Jin Hongwei said. "They felt that if they farmed, they would only earn a few thousand yuan a year, which was not enough to maintain expenses at all." Jin Hongwei attached great importance to the problems raised by these people and thought hard, hoping to find a way to solve their difficulties. "I conveyed our village's problems to Jiang Shaohua, secretary of the town Party committee, and he thought of a solution for me, which was to establish a cooperative and mobilize villagers to grow vegetables and fruit together to increase income." Jin Hongwei said that at the time, much of the village land was lying idle. It had previously been rented out for others to grow nursery stock, but the returns were also poor, so it was better to simply take it back and grow vegetables and fruit themselves.

To this end, Jin Hongwei convened relevant personnel and held a special meeting for discussion, trying every possible way to solve everyone's immediate difficulties, so that they could find a way out without leaving home and make use of the land left by their ancestors for generations to grow "money trees." Subsequently, several people led by Jin Hongwei established a fruit and vegetable professional cooperative, preparing to make a big move in the village. "Originally we thought of growing seasonal vegetables, because the results come relatively quickly." In order to grow vegetables and fruit well, Jin Hongwei paid out of his own pocket and took more than ten people, including the village two committees and village representatives, to Quzhou to inspect professional fruit and vegetable planting bases and learn techniques: how to keep fruits and vegetables fresh, how to improve nutrition, and how to speed up results. They saw high-end intelligent modern planting technology, broke their original fixed traditional planting mindset, and benefited greatly.

After the study tour, Jin Hongwei and his group found that growing fruit was more profitable, so they decided to choose some suitable varieties for planting. At this time, the news that the government required livestock farms to be demolished spread to every village and place, and Jin Hongwei began going door to door to do the villagers' ideological work.

When next year's fruit ripens, the fragrance of fruit will be rich across the hills and fields

"After hearing that the pig farms were going to be demolished, quite a few villagers came to complain to me. With so many pigs, some still piglets and sows, if they were demolished all at once, what would happen to these pigs? No one would want them." After learning of the villagers' difficulties, Jiangtang Town and the village both mobilized to think of ways for the villagers and help handle the livestock at market prices. When doing ideological work with the villagers, Jin Hongwei always kept comforting them and giving them full confidence. "Look at how the village has changed in recent years. How has it developed? If the livestock farms are demolished, I will absolutely not let you go hungry. I will certainly let you have a good life." He knew that everyone was not unwilling to demolish them, but did not know what they could do after the pig farms were demolished. "Your pig farming is all small-scale and unstable. You do not know when you might lose money. It would be better to change to another line of work and do something 'big.'"

"If the pig farms are demolished, what else can we do? Most of us are people in our fifties and sixties. If we go to work in factories, no one wants us, and we ourselves have no skills at all." Facing this problem, the work Jin Hongwei had done several months earlier came in handy. "I showed them the results I had prepared earlier and made my determination clear to them, letting them know that I was not just playing around. Since they also had such difficulties, I hoped everyone could join the cooperative and work together."