One Village, One Product: Over These Five Years, the Tianshan Mountains Have Witnessed Villagers' Wallets Swell and Lifted Up Their Hopes of Prosperity
My name is Lin Jiazhi, and I am a cadre of the "Visit the People, Benefit the People, Bring the People Together" work team in Tograk Township. Moving from a government office to the grassroots level, my workplace shifted from steel and concrete to the fields and farmland. It was my first time truly sinking down to the grassroots, my first time truly getting close to the people, and also my first time truly completing my beautiful transformation.
Life at the grassroots level is hard. I can only go home once every two weeks, and the rest of the time I am busy in the village with all kinds of complicated yet deeply rewarding matters. Having personally witnessed many of my fellow villagers' wallets swelling with the township's help, I too have gained a full measure of happiness. Our hard work and sweat are worth it.
Today I am going to the pumpkin field of Alimu, a resident of Ajimaili Village. Alimu's family's pumpkins have now reached harvest time, and he spends all day busy in his pumpkin field. I plan to go and learn about the sales situation and see what help I can offer. As soon as I arrived at the edge of the field, I saw village Party branch secretary Zhao Guogang discussing sales matters with Alimu. Zhao Guogang told me: over these years, we have helped growers find sales channels and have also developed a set of methods. First, we have contacted restaurants we have long-term cooperation with for long-term supply; second, we use the internet and new media for sales; third, all township cadres coordinate to promote and find sales channels. At present, the sales channels look pretty good.
Gazing at the golden, bumper harvest of pumpkins, Alimu's face was full of joy. Alimu is 50 years old this year and is a farmer born and raised here. His family has 5 members, and the family income mainly relies on farming his own 30 mu of land. In the past, he only knew how to grow traditional crops like corn and wheat, and after a year of hard work the income was less than 10,000 yuan. In recent years, with the encouragement and support of the village committee, he went from trial-planting 3 mu of pumpkins to gradually expanding to 30 mu of scaled planting. Based on this year's yield, the net income per mu is 2,000 yuan, plus a special planting subsidy of 500 yuan per mu, bringing net income to more than 70,000 yuan.
The field is full of bright yellow, plump pumpkins, charmingly naive in appearance, ripening one after another and giving off an enticing brilliance. This village mainly grows pumpkins, with green and organic as its flagship feature: no chemical fertilizers or herbicides are used, and only farmyard organic fertilizer is applied. They are sweeter than ordinary pumpkins and taste better, and demand exceeds supply.
According to Mayila from the township agricultural technology service center, farmers in Tograk Township have a 30-year history of growing pumpkins. In the past it was all scattered planting that could not form scale. Through developing "One Village, One Product," the township actively encourages and supports farmers in expanding pumpkin planting area, which has now reached 875 mu. Now they either adopt a two-harvests-a-year planting model or develop optimized industrial planting models such as pumpkins and raspberries. Each year the entire township replants 1,027 mu of various open-field vegetables and 2,600 mu of silage corn, and develops 2,000 mu of optimized-structure specialty planting such as pumpkins and raspberries. At this point, Mayila's face was full of pride. She also said that the adoption of drip irrigation under plastic film has increased yields year by year.
Since I began living in the village, what has struck me most is none other than the specialty planting and breeding industries here. Scaled planting of raspberries, pumpkins and watermelons, and specialty breeding of meat cattle and sheep, chickens, geese and so on. As villagers' demand for planting and breeding knowledge grows, the township regularly organizes technical training and has also implemented a more flexible system of agricultural technicians taking responsibility for villages and linking with households, promptly improving services. Every agricultural technician has an assigned village service area and provides technical services such as film mulching, grafting, pest and disease control, and scientific breeding. No matter what problem you run into, come and ask our agricultural technicians and the problem will be readily solved.
Having spent years in an office, in this one year in the township I have truly broadened my horizons. Only by walking through villages, entering households and going down into the fields did I truly understand and experience that the desire to get rich cannot be separated from the Party's good policies, nor from the township and village cadres who rush about in the fields all year round. Township head Zhu Yadong told me that in the past Tograk Township's agriculture was monotonous, mainly growing corn and wheat, with a single industrial structure. Farmers and herdsmen had the desire to escape poverty and become rich, but when it came to implementation there was no point of leverage. In recent years, under the guidance of the new concept of governing Xinjiang, after Tograk Township formed its poverty-alleviation concept aimed at increasing farmers' and herdsmen's incomes, the green development concept of integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries also took firm hold. The township accelerated the adjustment of its agricultural structure, based itself on local resource and technological advantages, developed high-quality and efficient agriculture and animal husbandry, and continuously broadened channels for farmers to increase income and become rich. It gradually built the Shangtograk Village centralized fattening cattle and sheep breeding base, the Tograk Village live livestock and hides trading market, Ajimaili Village's pumpkin and raspberry planting, Kalier Village's watermelon planting andgoose raisingand deep processing, forming a "One Village, One Product" industrial development pattern, truly making advantage-based specialty agriculture bigger and stronger. The township's per capita net income of farmers and herdsmen increased from 7,098 yuan in 2011 to 13,050 yuan in 2016, an average annual increase of 16.8%.
These changes in the data are exciting. Under the correct leadership of the municipal Party committee and municipal government, and with the joint efforts of all cadres of Tograk Township and the "Visit the People, Benefit the People, Bring the People Together" work team, the common people's days will get better and better. And I too, in my work and life living in the village, share the joy of the harvest with the villagers and witness with them the development and changes of Tograk Township. And amid all this I have changed too. The approving smiles of the common people make my steps forward firmer, and I have truly understood that serving the people wholeheartedly is not a earth-shaking slogan, but something to be realized bit by bit and down-to-earth with genuine heart and true feeling. In this past year, I also grew from an activist applying for Party membership into a glorious probationary Party member. The road ahead is still long. Do not forget the original aspiration, and strive forward!
(Contributed by Lin Jiazhi, work team stationed in Tograk Township, Publicity Department of the Yining Municipal Party Committee)
Editor's note: You can feel that the author wrote this article with true emotion, and the editor was moved too. At the same time, I especially want to taste their village's green pumpkins! Now the editor will tell everyone how to get to eat these pumpkins.Guide one: Buy by driving yourself.You can also experience the joy of picking them yourself! Route: drive to the Ajimaili Village committee at the 1.5-kilometer point on Line 691, turning off from Tograk Township on Provincial Highway 220, or take bus No. 501 to the Tograk Township government stop, get off, and then go to the Ajimaili Village committee at the 1.5-kilometer point on Line 691.Guide two: Home delivery.Dear friends, delivery starts at 500 kilograms.Everyone is sincerely invited to come to Ajimaili Village, Tograk Township, to pick and purchase pumpkins.Contact person: Zhao Guogang (Party branch secretary of Ajimaili Village) Contact phone: 18099528121