Kiwifruit helps Huang Zuwu return home and increase his income
Huang Zuwu picking kiwifruit
At the kiwifruit base in Zongbing'an Village, Majiadu Town, Zhushan County, Hubei Province, densely packed kiwifruit hang from the branches, a truly delightful sight. "The kiwifruit here are not only large and sweet, but also have a long storage period and good taste," said Huang Zuwu, the person in charge of the base.
Huang Zuwu is a true farmer from Baofeng Town, Zhushan County. He worked away from home for many years, wanting to prosper and, even more, wanting to lead his fellow villagers out of poverty toward wealth.
In 2012, he saw large-scale kiwifruit cultivation in Xing'an County, Sichuan Province, and at that time had the idea of returning to his hometown to develop the kiwifruit industry. So he looked up the development trends and market prices of the kiwifruit industry online. Through preliminary analysis, he felt that developing kiwifruit in Zhushan County was feasible. In 2013, he again went to Xing'an County, Sichuan Province, to learn techniques such as kiwifruit base construction and management. Through several months of study, he gained a clear concept for building a kiwifruit industry base. He decided to act at once. He selected the base in Zongbing'an Village.
Zongbing'an Village is located 5 km west of Majiadu Town and used to be a poor small mountain valley.
In 2013, Majiadu Town stepped up comprehensive development of the Tanjiahe area with Zongbing'an Village as the core, insisting on closely combining beautiful countryside construction with industrial development and farmers' income growth, and striving, in accordance with scientific planning, to build a beautiful countryside that is livable, workable and suitable for tourism.
In 2014, Huang Zuwu seized the opportunity. Through land transfer, he registered and established Run'an Family Farm to develop the kiwifruit industry, focusing on 5 varieties: Hongyang, Xuxiang, Cuixiang, Golden Fruit and Hayward. Through nearly a year of effort, the 300 mu of kiwifruit he developed bore fruit and went on the market.
The kiwifruit industry began to show results. How could he lead his fellow villagers to truly escape poverty and become wealthy?
Huang Zuwu said: "Farmers in mountainous areas have limited access to information and no way to increase income and become wealthy. I will take the lead and set an example, so that farmers in mountainous areas can see the bright prospects of developing a green industry and be driven to increase income and become wealthy."
He took the initiative to discuss matters many times with the two committees of Zongbing'an Village and representatives of the villagers. With the care and support of the town Party committee and government, he tried the "market cooperation and win-win" model (that is, the "five-three-two" profit-sharing model), adopted an operating mechanism of "government guidance, departmental coordination, project support, company leadership and farmer participation," established a kiwifruit professional cooperative, built a kiwifruit industry demonstration park and completed a cold storage warehouse. The Zongbing'an Village Committee transferred 1000 mu of land in concentrated contiguous plots and contracted the whole area for 3 years to build the kiwifruit industrial park. After it reaches full production, Huang Zuwu will return the transferred area to the farmers for their own production and management, the village committee will assist with management, and he will be responsible for external market and technical guidance services and will organize product buyback and packaging sales at the initial market price. At present, 60 farmers "work" at the kiwifruit base, with an average annual income of 15000 yuan per person. After the kiwifruit industrial park reaches full production, the yield per mu can reach 2500 kg. Calculated at 15 yuan per jin, the output value per mu can reach 75000 yuan, making it a major pillar industry for prosperity in Zongbing'an Village.
While developing the kiwifruit industry, Huang Zuwu always paid attention to helping the village's poor households escape poverty. Last year, he took in 45 poor households from Group 1 of the village, both transferring their land and letting them work on the farm, thereby increasing their income and confidence in becoming wealthy. In the last 5 months of last year, Huang Zuwu paid out a cumulative total of more than 300000 yuan in work fees to poor households and 200000 yuan in land transfer subsidies.
Zongbing'an Village has been selected as a "Hubei Province Green Demonstration Village," a "Hubei Province Provincial-Level Ecological Village" and a "China Rural Tourism Model Village," creating a new model of ecological tourism development integrating ecological governance, new countryside construction and folk tourism.
Speaking of future plans, Huang Zuwu said with full confidence: "In future development and construction, we will further strengthen the management of the kiwifruit industrial park, raise the standards of park construction, deepen product processing and form an integrated industrial development model of production, supply and sales. We will build a kiwifruit product processing factory and achieve deep processing of kiwifruit products to increase product added value, making kiwifruit the 'golden fruit' for the people to increase income and become wealthy."