Growing Tea for Ten Years, He Led the Villagers to Prosper Together

Walking into Zhouyang Village, Nayang Town, Heng County, rows upon rows of verdant tea trees cover the hills, and tea cultivation is one of the main sources of income for the villagers. The villagers all say that without the long-term persistence of village cadre Su Shiyao, tea cultivation in Zhouyang Village might have been abandoned long ago. Su Shiyao's ten years of persistence and innovation have enabled the village's tea industry to form a one-stop service chain from variety selection, cultivation, management, picking and processing to sales, ensuring the development of the village's tea cultivation and giving most villagers a stable income, while the number of poor households and poor people in the village has steadily declined thanks to tea cultivation.

Guarding Tea Cultivation for Ten Years

Recently, the reporter came to Su Shiyao's tea garden and saw workers busy picking the last batch of autumn tea; next, the tea trees would enter their dormant period. At this time, can tea people take a rest? Su Shiyao said: "When the tea trees enter the dormant period, the tea-picking workers can rest. But I cannot rest; next I still have a lot of work to do for updating the tea varieties."

Su Shiyao and his wife have long lived in a cement-brick house beside the tea garden. Su Shiyao said: "We have not gone back to live in our new house in the county town for a long time. My wife also has a lot of complaints! But to achieve effective management of the tea, there is no way without keeping company with the tea!" Su Shiyao already has 19 years of experience in tea cultivation, and has run his own tea garden for more than 10 years. Su Shiyao's tea cultivation area in Zhouyang Village has reached more than 200 mu. He also has more than 100 mu of tea garden in Qingdao, Shandong, and more than 300 mu of tea garden in Redong County, Hainan Province. He not only grows tea himself, but also handles the purchasing, processing and sales links, ensuring that the tea grown by the villagers has no worries about sales.

Leading Farmers to Prosperity

Under Su Shiyao's careful management, his tea garden has become a village demonstration base. At present, the villagers' tea cultivation has grown to more than 2,000 mu. Almost every household in Zhouyang Village grows tea, and the formerly abandoned hilly land has become a "treasure land." Tea cultivation has also become one of the important local sources of income.

Su Shiyao explained that one mu of tea garden can bring farmers an income of more than 2,500 yuan a year, and if the tea variety is well chosen, the income will be even higher. Most of the tea currently grown in the village is of old varieties, and the market response is not very good. This is also the problem he currently needs to solve.

Cultivation and management are the key issues. At present, Su Shiyao has consulted with some tea growers to let him manage on their behalf, achieving large-scale cultivation and unified management. This not only frees up labor, but the tea trees can also receive more scientific management. For this reason, after discussing with the village committee, he specially established the Heng County Xiaokang Tea Cultivation Professional Cooperative, allowing tea farmers to participate in the cooperative, jointly develop tea cultivation, and let the cooperative manage the tea trees on behalf of the tea farmers. At present, Su Shiyao's tea garden has already taken in more than 10 poor households from Zhouyang Village for transferred employment, and there are also several poor households from surrounding villages.

Variety Renewal Helps Poverty Alleviation

To increase tea farmers' income, another difficult problem Su Shiyao needs to solve is renewing tea varieties. Variety renewal requires experimental planting first. Su Shiyao is the local leader in tea cultivation, so the burden of experimental planting falls on him. Su Shiyao said that in the past, when renewing varieties, he cultivated and experimented by himself, which took time, effort and money. Now he has changed his method, sharing resources with peers through the Internet and directly buying tea varieties with mature technology and good market response from other places for experimental planting. After success, he buys them in batches according to the tea farmers' needs and distributes them to the tea farmers who need them.

With the renewal of tea varieties, the quality of the tea has also improved. At present, Zhouyang Village still has 100 poor households. Transferred employment at Su Shiyao's tea garden has solved the poverty alleviation problem for some poor households. As the income from tea cultivation further increases, it will bring higher income to more tea farmers and poor households, fundamentally solving the problems of increasing tea farmers' income and lifting poor households out of poverty.