Ruyang County explores a new development model of specialized cooperatives plus farming households

Recently, in the vegetable greenhouses of the Yufan Vegetable Planting Specialized Cooperative in Shangdian Town, Ruyang County, Henan Province, villager Li Sanfa and several other villagers were busy installing drip irrigation equipment in the greenhouses. Having worked as an odd-job worker at the cooperative for more than half a year, Li Sanfa can earn more than 100 yuan a day when there is plenty of work.

Li Sanfa is 64 years old this year, has a family of 5, and is a poor household in the village. Before coming to work at the cooperative, he did construction work in the county seat or farther away, often climbing down and up. "Working away from home is no match for age, farming at home brings limited income, and working at the cooperative is not bad - the work is not heavy and it is close to home." Li Sanfa said with a smile while working.

The Yufan Vegetable Planting Specialized Cooperative was established in 2012. It has now transferred more than 1,200 mu of land in 4 villages of Shangdian Town and built more than 700 mu of plastic greenhouses and more than 500 mu of sunlight greenhouses. The varieties planted include peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, grapes, shiitake mushrooms, etc., providing surrounding villagers with different forms of work such as hourly-paid and piece-rate jobs.

Han Xiaolong, head of the cooperative, introduced that the previous model was for the cooperative to operate on its own and hire people to work, and the benefits were not good. Last year, the cooperative began exploring the "specialized cooperative + farming households" approach, encouraging villagers to contract fruit and vegetable greenhouses, and providing greenhouses, seeds, and technical guidance to farming households for free. Farming households only need to provide labor and take charge of daily farm work and harvesting, and then the cooperative uniformly handles sales and distributes dividends according to the output and quality of the products provided by the farming households. "As long as management is in place and output is guaranteed, an annual income of 20,000 yuan is no problem." Han Xiaolong said. In this way, the cooperative provides villagers, especially poor households, with an opportunity to "start their own business" at their doorstep, and the increase in everyone's enthusiasm for production has also increased the cooperative's benefits. In addition, the cooperative also encourages villagers with a good economic foundation to expand their contracted area and then absorb more poor households to participate in planting, so as to jointly increase income.

Up to now, more than 10 poor households in the town have contracted greenhouses at this cooperative; another more than 30 poor households have said they are willing to contract greenhouses this year for fruit and vegetable planting.

"At present, the cooperative's product sales market is relatively stable, and this year the scale of fruit and vegetable greenhouses will be further expanded." Han Xiaolong said. It is understood that at present, the cooperative has become a leading enterprise in vegetable industrialization that Shangdian Town focuses on building. In the future, it will be equipped with cold storage and preservation warehouses, organic fertilizer processing plants, urban fresh food supermarkets, etc., so that the fruits and vegetables grown by villagers will be more "green" and the road to shaking off poverty and becoming rich will be broader.

There are more than 80 poor households working at the cooperative like Li Sanfa, watering the fields, weeding, picking... Everyone uses their hardworking hands to support one fruit and vegetable greenhouse after another, and also gives wings to their own dreams.

Lu Bo