Xiewen Village Lifted Out of Poverty: Yi Village on the Plateau Lives in Peace, Green Ecological Industry Brings Prosperity
Xiewen Village in Tianxing Town is a minority area mainly inhabited by the Yi ethnic group, and is also one of the main representative places for the inheritance and development of Yi culture in Daguan County. It is home to 220 Yi households with 1240 people, accounting for more than 30% of the village's population. The village currently has 19 villager groups, with 1072 households and 3239 people, including 269 registered impoverished households with 936 people.
Amid the vigorous wave of poverty alleviation carried out across the entire county, how to find the right positioning and carry out targeted poverty alleviation work in light of actual conditions became the most pondered and most urgent issue for the "Three Committees" of Xiewen Village. In response, the "Three Committees" of Xiewen Village established a development approach focused on building the Tunshang Yi Village resettlement site to solve the housing difficulties of impoverished people, and on developing green ecological industries to solve the problem of increasing impoverished people's income and bringing them prosperity, leading the entire village's people into the wave of poverty alleviation.
Building Tunshang Yi Village Style Residences
In view of the ethnic style features of Xiewen Village, such as the concentrated settlement of Yi compatriots and the profound heritage of Yi culture, Xiewen Village determined a targeted poverty alleviation development plan focused on building the Tunshang Yi Village relocation resettlement site, thereby driving the whole village's impoverished households to solve their housing difficulties. The Tunshang Yi Village relocation resettlement site was planned and designed by the Yunnan Urban Planning and Design Institute of Architecture, organically combining housing construction with Yi characteristics and local culture, following the mountain terrain and using local materials, integrating the resettlement site construction with elements such as the Li Lan Uprising, Yi customs, and green ecology, and building Yi-style residences around the "one square, one hall, one route, one center, two rooms, two zones," authentically reflecting the simple rural style. At the same time, related supporting infrastructure planning for water, electricity, roads, and networks was carried out, with one cultural activity square as a supporting facility, building a platform for the inheritance and development of traditional Yi folk culture.
According to Zhang Caizhen, Party secretary of Xiewen Village, Xiewen Village was lifted out of poverty in 2016 with 269 households and 936 people, all with measures tailored to each household and one policy per household. Those who should be relocated in a centralized way were relocated, and those who should build houses on site were given dilapidated housing renovation quotas. Now basically 80 percent of the farming households' house construction has been completed.
To do a good job in building the Tunshang Yi Village relocation site, Tianxing Town established the Xiewen Village Tunshang Yi Village Resettlement Site Construction Command Headquarters, with the town mayor as commander, the deputy town mayor linked to the town government as deputy commander, and the one-case-one-discussion office, poverty alleviation office, urban construction office, Xiewen Village Committee and other units as members, to coordinate and advance the relocation work.
Publicize policies well and increase the people's enthusiasm for relocation. In order to understand the policies, make good use of the policies, and publicize the policies well, Tianxing Town held multiple Party and government leadership meetings to convey and study relevant documents and meeting spirits on relocation poverty alleviation work, and carefully studied the determination of relocation poverty alleviation targets, area standards, resettlement methods, procedures, subsidy standards, and time requirements. Town and village cadres held multiple symposiums with representatives of the people at the Tunshang Yi Village resettlement site to publicize the national targeted poverty alleviation policies, explain related policies such as housing construction subsidies, loans, and home purchase discounts, promptly understand the people's thoughts, listen to the people's opinions, and analyze with the people issues such as production and living arrangements and follow-up development after relocation, enhancing the people's enthusiasm for relocation. Task decomposition meetings were held well to clarify the work responsibilities of the command headquarters, representatives stationed at the construction site, supervisors, and the village "Three Committees," ensuring responsibilities reached each person and tasks reached each household, and fully promoting the smooth progress of all work in relocation poverty alleviation construction.
Through policy outreach, it was ultimately determined that the resettlement site would resettle 122 households with 477 people, including 77 households with 331 people in centralized resettlement, 27 households with 87 people in scattered resettlement, and 18 households with 59 people moving into the city and town.
Ensure project quality and guarantee construction progress. To ensure the quality and safety of project construction, upright, prestigious personnel familiar with construction procedures and with certain engineering skills were selected in the village to be stationed at the construction site, urging and inspecting construction and supervision units to carry out construction and supervision work strictly in accordance with design and contract requirements. A professional supervision company was hired to monitor the entire construction process, keep inspection records, promptly discover construction problems, promptly put forward rectification opinions, and promptly urge rectification, achieving effective control of project quality before, during, and after the event.
To ensure the orderly advancement of project construction, the town government selected a supplier within the market town area that met the material standards for comfortable housing and signed a guarantee agreement. Relocated households at the resettlement site may, on a voluntary basis, choose to buy building materials on credit from this supplier before funds are in place, and after funds are in place, the town and village will urge that funds be promptly paid to the material supplier.
To ensure that funds are truly used for comfortable housing construction, specially assigned personnel were arranged to keep the Agricultural Development Bank relocation benefit-farmer cards, while farming households keep the bank card passwords for comfortable housing construction, and the village committee grasps the construction progress of comfortable housing, disbursing paid and unpaid funds in a timely manner according to project progress.
Relocated household Chen Zhengjin told reporters: "My family's original house also collapsed. I moved from Yanshan Group One to Tunshang, almost five kilometers. It is quite concentrated here, the road is connected, and it is very convenient for children to go to school and see a doctor."
According to Wang Yunkang, director of the Poverty Alleviation Office of Tianxing Town, the next step will be to combine with actual conditions, refine assistance measures according to the characteristics and needs of assistance targets, implement assistance plans, and integrate relocation with whole-village advancement, infrastructure construction, industrial poverty alleviation, discounted loans, skills training, labor transfer, and social security, so as to produce maximum benefits. At the same time, work to advance poverty alleviation projects will continue, seeking support from multiple sides and integrating departmental funds to the greatest extent, ensuring completion of the resettlement site construction tasks on time, strengthening supervision and inspection of the work of village-stationed team members and town-village linked cadres, further exploring collective economy models, innovating industrial development models, and enabling farming households to "move out, stay stable, develop, and become prosperous."
Up to now, at the Tunshang centralized resettlement site, 77 households have begun construction, 61 households have completed ground ring beams and columns, 16 households have completed brick wall laying, and 9 households have completed first-floor slab pouring; for scattered resettlement, 16 households have completed foundation excavation, 10 households have completed ground ring beams, and 1 household has completed first-floor slab pouring; for the 18 households moving into the city and town, 4 households have completed self-built houses and 14 households have bought houses.
Zeng Chaowan, first secretary stationed in the village from the county credit union linked to Xiewen Village, told reporters that after entering the village they actively cooperated with Xiewen Village in doing a good job in assistance planning, visited households one by one, did the people's ideological work well, and did a good job in relocation. Through carrying out look-back work, they conducted in-depth and meticulous screening of farming households, and by the end of June determined 269 precise households with 936 people, achieving absolute precision. The county credit union also gave Xiewen Village a certain amount of funding support, planned to help Xiewen Village build a Party member activity room, and made some efforts to improve the office environment of the village "Three Committees"; regarding Xiewen's industrial development, it planned to allocate 20,000 yuan to develop the collective economy.
Developing Green Ecological Industries to Help the People Increase Income and Become Prosperous
In industrial development, in addition to doing a good job in the traditional flue-cured tobacco industry and consolidating the development of planting and animal husbandry, Xiewen Village plans to establish rural professional cooperatives to develop industries. Through on-site research, it identified Amur corktree, suitable for local weather, for planting, with a planned planting area of 15,000 mu, covering 5 natural villages. At present, 6,614 mu have been planted, and the project plans an investment of 4.41 million yuan. Taking advantage of Xiewen's high altitude, it plans to plant 500 mu of late-maturing cherries. The maturity and market time will be staggered from the peak cherry market season, so they can sell for a good price. The existing 6,000 mu of walnuts will be upgraded to improve quality. Flue-cured tobacco planting has always been the main income of farmers in Xiewen Village. To drive surrounding people to prosperity, the village "Three Committees" and the village-stationed work team encouraged large households to plant flue-cured tobacco, carrying out scaled planting in Yanshan Third Villager Group, Kuzhai Villager Group, and Xiewen First and Second Villager Groups. At present, more than 1,000 mu of flue-cured tobacco have been planted.
In animal husbandry, people in the village who have ideas and high enthusiasm are encouraged to take the lead in becoming prosperous. It plans to invest 300,000 yuan to develop a chicken-raising industry. With 600 households in the whole village, each household raises 50 chickens, for a total of 30,000 chickens. Wang Wei, a post-90s Yi young man living in Yanshan Third Villager Group, had been working away from home. After returning last year, he wanted to develop animal husbandry. After on-site investigation, he decided to develop native chicken breeding. At that time, due to funding difficulties, the village "Three Committees" actively coordinated with relevant town departments to lend him 20,000 yuan to support his chicken raising. To enable surrounding people to develop as well, although each chick originally cost 15 yuan, with local government support and a 10 yuan subsidy through allocated funds, impoverished households only needed to pay 5 yuan first to take the chicks home for breeding.
Yi young man Wang Wei is an impoverished household in Yanshan Third Villager Group and also a leader in becoming prosperous through chicken raising. He excitedly told reporters that after returning home from work in 2015, he wanted to do something practical in his hometown and start his own business, but because he had not made money while working away, he had no seed capital. With the idea of giving it a try, he made a request to the Xiewen Village Committee. Unexpectedly, the village committee immediately found a way to help him raise 20,000 yuan and develop nearly 3,000 chickens. Now the chicks he supplies to farming households are all local chicks, and he is fairly confident in what he is doing. He is very grateful to the comrades of the Xiewen Village Committee. In the next step of development, he plans to expand the scale, increase varieties, and drive surrounding farming households to raise chickens together and become prosperous.
Not only that, the village "Three Committees" and the village-stationed work team also selected impoverished households with rich sow breeding experience in each villager group to raise one high-quality sow. After piglets are produced, they are sold to impoverished households in the same villager group, and the cost of purchasing the sows is covered by allocated funds.
After each project is completed, Xiewen Village's infrastructure will be greatly improved, industries will develop substantially, the people's living standards will be greatly raised, and there will be new hope for escaping poverty and becoming prosperous. Through the implementation of projects such as comfortable housing, roads, Yi village style development, and social undertakings, the living environment of the people of Xiewen Village will be greatly improved.
Reporters Luo Dingdong, Dai Tao; intern reporter Chen Shaojin
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