Older Woman Turns Entrepreneur Growing Black Wood Ear Mushrooms, Becoming Prosperous Together with Villagers
62-year-old Aunt Zhang Xiurong has recently become a "sensation."
Relying on cultivating black wood ear mushrooms, through her own entrepreneurship, she completed a "transformation" from abject poverty to an annual income of tens of thousands in just two years. During this period, she even upgraded her cultivation techniques, formed a cooperative of impoverished households, registered an online shop to achieve online sales, and also led villagers to escape poverty and become prosperous together.
Aunt Zhang's poverty-alleviation case is a microcosm of "e-commerce poverty alleviation" in Zhalantun City, Inner Mongolia. Facing the prominent problem of "poverty amid plenty" - where local specialty products are of good quality but have poor sales channels and low outside awareness - the local government seized the opportunity of developing agricultural e-commerce, both helping impoverished households escape poverty and promoting the development of related industries, gradually changing the local face of poverty with a single network cable.
Against the backdrop of the era of poverty alleviation, Zhalantun, as an impoverished county, has this time made up its mind to "take off its hat" (shed its impoverished status).
Poverty Amid Plenty
In terms of area, Hulunbuir City is the sum of Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, and the county-level city of Zhalantun under Hulunbuir's jurisdiction is even larger than Beijing. On this vast land of Zhalantun, the ecosystem is intact and natural resources are relatively good, with as many as 7 agricultural products certified under national geographical indication protection, such as black wood ear mushrooms and rice. However, 16,000 impoverished people still live here, and the problem of "poverty amid plenty" - where specialty products are of good quality but have poor sales channels and low outside awareness - is quite prominent.
Li Hailong, deputy director of the Zhalantun City Poverty Alleviation Office, told the First Financial Daily reporter that the top three causes of local poverty are disasters, illness, and lack of production funds. Regarding "poverty amid plenty," he explained that Zhalantun City has green mountains and clear waters, and many high-quality agricultural product resources, but due to inconvenient transportation and blocked information, they cannot reach the national market, let alone fetch a good price, and naturally cannot drive impoverished villagers to increase income and become prosperous. So despite being rich in resources, it remains poor.
However, the booming development of e-commerce has changed this situation.
In 2015, e-commerce poverty alleviation was designated by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development as one of the top ten projects for targeted poverty alleviation. Leveraging the favorable opportunity of Zhalantun City being recognized by the Ministry of Commerce as an e-commerce pilot county and by the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives as an e-commerce demonstration county, Li Hailong said the government took overall consideration, integrated poverty alleviation policies and funds, incorporated poverty alleviation into the e-commerce system for comprehensive advancement, and through "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" drove impoverished households to find employment and increase income across the entire industry chain of e-commerce development.
It was also in this year that Aunt Zhang did three major things: expanding the scale of three-dimensional cultivation of black wood ear mushrooms, establishing the Aunt Zhang Black Wood Ear Mushroom Professional Cultivation Cooperative, and registering an online shop to sell black wood ear mushrooms through e-commerce. The previous year, Aunt Zhang had just attended a black wood ear mushroom cultivation technique training class organized by the government, and half-believing, she tried using 9,000 yuan borrowed from various sources to purchase 6,000 bags of spawn, starting her entrepreneurial journey in her own yard.
The simple and honest Aunt Zhang told our reporter that when the spawn bags were first brought back, she stared at them blankly, wondering, could these really grow wood ear mushrooms? But under the follow-up training and technical guidance of technicians from the Zhalantun City Black Wood Ear Mushroom Office, in 2014, she earned 18,000 yuan from selling wood ear mushrooms, netting over 9,000 yuan after deducting costs, about 1.5 yuan net profit per bag. In her view, with two sick family members needing care and being advanced in age, working outside could not earn much either. This kind of courtyard economy is not very labor-intensive and suits her family situation well.
After a year of cultivation experience, Aunt Zhang had tasted the "sweetness." In 2015, after learning about the latest "hanging bag greenhouse three-dimensional cultivation of black wood ear mushrooms" technique, considering the limited space in her yard, Aunt Zhang thought about changing the original ground-placement cultivation model and adopting three-dimensional cultivation within the existing yard, which would expand the cultivation scale by nearly 4 times, reaching 20,000 bags.
However, funding remained a constraining factor. So, with the help of the Poverty Alleviation Office and other departments, 121,500 yuan was crowdfunded for Aunt Zhang, a steel-structured hanging bag greenhouse of over 300 sq m was built, 20,000 bags of hanging bag wood ear mushroom spawn were purchased, and the Aunt Zhang Black Wood Ear Mushroom Professional Cooperative and the "Yi Ba Mu Er" brand trademark were registered. Through e-commerce technical training provided by the government, Aunt Zhang successfully opened an online shop to achieve online sales. That year her net income reached 30,000 yuan, and she escaped poverty that same year. Under her demonstration and leadership, registered impoverished households joined the cooperative one after another.
The 3.0 Version of Escaping Poverty and Becoming Prosperous
This poverty-alleviation model of Aunt Zhang, the prosperity "expert," is called the "impoverished household direct entrepreneurship model" by the local poverty alleviation department. Li Hailong said this is one of seven e-commerce poverty alleviation and prosperity models cultivated through integrating resources since the city implemented the e-commerce poverty alleviation development strategy.
This approach of turning college students, rural youth, and impoverished households into e-commerce makers is greatly recognized by the local government. Li Hailong believes the government provides makers with funding, policy, and technical support, but more importantly, it needs to mobilize their enthusiasm for both escaping poverty and entrepreneurship, letting them rely on their own strength and the power of the market to change their current impoverished situation.
From the current situation, a single network cable is gradually changing the face of impoverished areas in Zhalantun City. In fact, against the backdrop of the new economic normal where localities continuously seek economic transformation, vigorously developing agricultural e-commerce undoubtedly helps drive impoverished farmers to increase income and become prosperous. And this reliance on the market rather than "waiting, depending, and asking" to escape poverty, and even to escape poverty and become prosperous in the future, is even more worth looking forward to.
Kang Shaoquan, village party secretary of Yemahe Village in Moguqi Town, Zhalantun City, hit the nail on the head: to escape poverty, the market plays a more important role than the government. He said that through e-commerce platforms, one can understand market conditions - whatever the market demands, that is what gets planted - and it is convenient for facilitating orders. Moreover, wherever prices are higher, goods can be sold there. E-commerce easily solves the problem of information asymmetry between producers and sellers.
He analyzed that the local poverty is due to having more people and less land, with many mountainous areas, making it hard to sustain life relying on land. In addition, the geographical location is far from the town center, transportation is inconvenient, and shopping and selling are both inconvenient, which has become the primary factor constraining economic development. Furthermore, the agricultural industry has not formed large-scale operations.
Regarding the e-commerce promoted locally, he commented that e-commerce platforms allow industrial products to go to the countryside and agricultural products to enter the cities. Moreover, for impoverished groups who are older, have low education levels, and lack e-commerce skills, village-level service stations have been specially set up to centrally display and sell specialty products that impoverished households need to sell.
Since e-commerce has high requirements for infrastructure such as transportation and communications, and also needs corresponding talent support, Chen Qiulin, deputy secretary-general of the Hulunbuir Municipal Government and vice mayor of Zhalantun City, told the First Financial Daily reporter that for impoverished and backward areas to use e-commerce to overtake on the curve is indeed a great challenge. However, if one waits until all conditions are met before doing e-commerce, there will be no opportunity left. Considering the shortcomings in infrastructure and talent, the municipal government is also working hard to adopt measures in policy and funding to improve and perfect them, hoping to explore a path for local poverty alleviation through e-commerce.
At present, after experiencing the 1.0 relief-style poverty alleviation model of "giving people fish" and the 2.0 development-style poverty alleviation model of "teaching people to fish," Zhalantun City has begun to enter the 3.0 era of e-commerce open-style poverty alleviation of "opening up the fish market." Chen Qiulin explained that the 1.0 model is basic-guarantee poverty alleviation, solving the problem of absolute poverty. Considering sustainability, help needs to be given in industry and skills, hence the 2.0 development-style poverty alleviation. But small-scale planting and breeding, when responding to ever-changing market conditions, means impoverished households are very likely to encounter market risks and possibly fall back into poverty. That requires entering the 3.0 model, opening up a stable market through e-commerce to reduce the risk of market price fluctuations.
Regarding the e-commerce poverty alleviation practice over the past year or so, Chen Qiulin believes that both the government and individuals should now clearly recognize that the internet information age has arrived, and impoverished areas especially should seize this opportunity, not only to escape poverty but also to promote economic transformation. Then, what local governments should focus on is providing public services, such as improving infrastructure like transportation and communications, as well as prioritizing talent - training talent, attracting talent, and incubating talent. Of course, e-commerce should not be merely a poverty alleviation tool; it should also be considered within the context of the entire local industrial economy to achieve economic structural adjustment and integrated development.
If in the past some places took pride in "poverty" and enjoyed being backward, unwilling to "take off their hats" in order to strive for policy and funding support, then under the time-reversed mechanism and organizational assessment mechanism proposed at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee - that by 2020, more than 70 million rural impoverished people under China's current standards will escape poverty and all 592 impoverished counties will "take off their hats" - local governments have more motivation to escape poverty and shed their impoverished status.
Li Hailong told our reporter that Zhalantun has the ability to "take off its hat" and does not want to wear this hat either. The government needs to implement dynamic management - on one hand, doing a good job in poverty alleviation, and on the other hand, controlling and preventing people from falling back into poverty. As for after taking off the hat, it does not mean poverty is solved; continued attention must be paid to relative poverty, giving this group support in both industry and policy.