Tea-Oil King Chen Guofu Leads the People of Luxi, Hunan Out of Poverty
Nothing is more deeply moving than sending charcoal in the snow and offering an umbrella in the rain. In Zhaoziping Village, Heshui Town, Luxi County, farmer and Party member Chen Guofu, having grown rich, did not forget to repay the Party's grace; having prospered first, he did not forget his fellow villagers, and devoted true compassion to helping the poor. Is this not exactly the umbrella in the rain and the charcoal in the snow? With selfless true feeling and his own practical actions, he composed a stirring anthem of the prosperous leading the poor to wealth, a song that will forever be sung and echoed across the land of western Hunan...
On August 17, accompanied by the main person in charge of the county's poverty alleviation office, this writer, facing a gentle autumn breeze, stepped onto the ten-thousand-mu ecological tea-oil base in Heshui Town, Luxi County, deep in the mountains. For ten li, the tea garden was verdantly green, the tea groves lush across the hills, the tea-oil flowers ready to bloom, their fresh fragrance filling the nose, brimming with a rich air of autumn harvest. In the tea-oil garden, farmer and Party member Chen Guofu of Zhaoziping Village in the town and villagers were weeding, pruning, and fertilizing the tea-oil trees, sweat pouring like rain, a scene of bustling labor.
After Chen Guofu grew rich through business, he threw himself actively into becoming wealthy through tea-oil development. Having prospered first himself, he helped the poor people around him develop tea-oil cultivation and grow rich, and organized the founding of the Heshui Town Guofu Tea-Oil Professional Cooperative, devoted specifically to tea-oil planting, processing, and sales. In the decisive battle for targeted poverty alleviation, he continuously advanced innovation in the poverty alleviation and eradication mechanism, actively built a linked-interest mechanism of "shared benefit" between capable people in economic organizations and poor farmers, and forged a new path that successfully led surrounding poor farming households to wealth.
Heshui Town is Luxi's "home of tea oil," and Chen Guofu is the famous "Tea-Oil King" known for a hundred li around in the county. In recent years, the series of tea-oil products he developed, because of their good quality, have sold well in markets and supermarkets within the province and have been shipped far to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and other provinces and municipalities. Relying on planting tea oil, Chen Guofu has lived a flourishing life, and thereby became a local benchmark for poverty alleviation and becoming rich.
Having grown rich first, Chen Guofu did not forget his fellow villagers. He said: "Only I being wealthy does not mean a moderately prosperous society. Only when the villagers, in this 'home of tea oil,' walk out of the mountains through developing tea oil and reach the thousands of households of the great cities, when everyone's wallets are bulging and all have shed their poverty hats, is that comprehensive moderate prosperity."
In March 2012, Chen Guofu opened a tea-oil processing plant in Heshui Town and founded the Guofu Tea-Oil Development Professional Cooperative. With the full support of departments including the Luxi County Poverty Alleviation and Development Office, the Finance Bureau, and the Forestry Bureau, Chen Guofu carried out comprehensive scientific planting and tea-oil processing, and the cooperative's scale grew continuously. Today, the cooperative's newly established high-yield tea-oil base has reached 2400 mu, and in 2015 alone, the cooperative sold more than 80 tons of tea oil, with operating revenue exceeding 7.2 million yuan.
The cooperative's industrial park has continuously expanded, and a comprehensive ecological tea-oil industrial park integrating breeding, sightseeing, leisure, and tourism has been built. At present, it raises more than 260 pigs, with an annual slaughter of more than 800, generating income of more than 2.6 million yuan; it raises more than 700 mountain chickens, annually selling more than 1600, generating income of more than 210,000 yuan. Every November, when the tea-oil flowers bloom, many tourists come to the tea-oil garden for sightseeing and tourism. "I plan to use 3 years to expand the tea-oil planting area to more than 5000 mu, with annual tea-oil output exceeding 300 tons and annual output value exceeding 30 million yuan," Chen Guofu said with full confidence.
The two villages of Zhaoziping and Xizhou in Heshui Town have a total of 1103 households and 5017 people, of whom 1720 are poor, with nearly 40 percent of the population living in poverty. Because most young and able-bodied adults have gone out to work, the two villages have more than 6000 mu of barren hills and wasteland.
Chen Guofu saw it with his eyes and fretted in his heart. On one side, farmers were guarding a "golden mountain" yet living poor lives; on the other, the cooperative urgently needed to expand its scale. How could the two be effectively integrated? After repeated consideration, Chen Guofu decided to adopt the method of land shareholding, encouraging farming households to join the cooperative with barren hills and wasteland as shares. Farming households joining with land shares, after the cooperative base generates benefits, can also enjoy a 20% share of the profits from the tea-oil base. In this way, farming households enjoy both rent and dividends, and at the same time can work at the base at their doorstep, growing rich through labor. Land shareholding received an enthusiastic response from the broad masses of farming households, and villagers from the two villages eagerly participated. Soon more than 380 farming households had transferred and contributed 2020 mu of land as shares, with annual rent from the transferred shareholding land reaching 55,000 yuan. This measure of Chen Guofu's enriched others while also enriching himself, revitalized barren hills and wasteland while bringing wealth to the villagers of a whole area.
On the road to leading the poor to wealth, besides land shareholding, what other feasible methods are there to help the poor escape poverty and become rich? In 2015, the Luxi County Poverty Alleviation and Development Office carried out a pilot of entrusted assistance poverty alleviation in the tea-oil industry in Heshui Town. This was a rare good opportunity. Chen Guofu seized this opportunity and took on the important task of entrusted assistance, adopting a new model of "company + base + farming households + poverty alleviation." Poor farming households contributed poverty alleviation funds as shares and applied to join the cooperative, and the cooperative signed assistance agreements with the poor farming households that joined. According to the agreement, 25% of the entrusted assistance poverty alleviation funds would be used for the development of the tea-oil professional cooperative, and 75% for expenditure on tending and management of the tea-oil base, hiring labor, fertilizing, pesticides, and so on. Before the tea-oil trees bore fruit, poor farming households that contributed entrusted assistance funds as shares enjoyed the priority right to work; after the tea-oil generated income, 20% of the profits each year would be used for dividend distribution, with entrusted assistance continuing until 2050. Afterward, 1720 people from the two villages of Zhaoziping and Xizhou, and 3.1 million yuan in poverty alleviation funds, were invested in the cooperative, managed uniformly by the cooperative and used to develop the tea-oil industry.
"Leading and helping poor farming households to become shareholders, so that they truly became shareholders. In 2015 alone, a great wave of poor villagers increased their incomes by working at the tea-oil base at their doorstep, shed their hats of poverty, and realized their dream of moderate prosperity," Chen Guofu said.
In the past two years, the Luxi County Poverty Alleviation Office invested more than 4 million yuan in poverty alleviation funds to build the Heshui ten-thousand-mu ecological tea-oil demonstration park, and entrusted the county's Guofu Tea-Oil Professional Cooperative to transfer 2020 mu of poor households' land, implementing standardized operation and management integrating production and processing. Through land transfer shareholding and dividends, 919 poor households and 1720 poor farmers reached an annual per capita net income of 9000 to more than 16,000 yuan, achieving precise shedding of poverty hats and escape from poverty.
Great love speaks no words. In the arduous years of the prosperous leading the later-prosperous, Chen Guofu, with full passion for the Party and selfless dedication to the masses, step by step, with all his body and soul, practiced the purpose of an outstanding Communist Party member and led the villagers to a good life. At present, under his leadership, the villagers of the two villages are striding along the bright avenue to comprehensive moderate prosperity.