Beef cattle farming drives poor households to increase income and become wealthy
In recent years, Xingren County, Guizhou Province, has encouraged and guided rural areas to establish agricultural professional cooperatives for joint development. A large number of large-scale breeding households and skilled wealth-builders have emerged across the county. Using their skills and the state's support policies, they have taken the lead in the breeding industry and played an exemplary vanguard role in helping their neighbors and fellow villagers escape poverty and become wealthy.
Luo Kaifu, chairman of the Zhonghe Farmers' Cattle Breeding Professional Cooperative in Yinchang Village, Baide Town, Xingren County, is a typical example. Having worked in the grain department for more than 20 years, he is a rural native who returned to his hometown in 2008 to develop breeding. He raised sheep and then pigs. When raising sheep, he grew his flock from 200 to more than 600 and earned his “first pot of gold” in life, making him a veritable breeding expert in the eyes of the local people.
Yinchang Village in Baide Town is a relatively remote village in Xingren County, a typical mountainous area with abundant resources on the mountains. Local farmers mainly grow corn, rice and wheat, and forage resources are plentiful. Luo Kaifu seized on the area's rich mountain resources and his years of breeding technology to develop ecological breeding, and took advantage of the state's policy of increasing investment in the agricultural industry, tasting the “sweetness” of breeding.
In 2014, the Provincial People's Congress group assisted Baide Town. The village planned to establish a cooperative to develop the breeding industry and drive villagers to escape poverty and become wealthy, so Luo Kaifu stepped forward and took the lead in establishing the Zhonghe Farmers' Cattle Breeding Professional Cooperative in Yinchang Village, Baide Town, Xingren County. He also invested more than 1.2 million yuan to build a breeding farm for beef cattle farming, and used the group's model of poor households joining as shareholders with assistance funds to drive farmers to raise breeding cows, using his many years of breeding technology to provide free technical services to farmers. Shareholding farmers not only enjoy the technical training and guidance provided by the cooperative, but can also actively seek subsidy funds for national projects through the cooperative. Under his leadership, in 2015 more than 10 households including villagers Zuo Keliang and Zhou Wenxiang actively joined the cooperative, and many poor people are using the county's interest-free poverty alleviation assistance funds to further expand their breeding scale.
Poor household Qin Meishu initially joined the cooperative with 2 cattle and now raises 4. This year the cooperative is completing the formalities to apply to the relevant departments for subsidies.
Speaking about future development, Luo Kaifu said confidently that in order to win more markets and drive more farmers to prosper, he has now set up a specialty store in the city for sales. At the same time, he will set a good example, strengthen management, and lead farmers onto the road to wealth.
Today, more and more villagers in Yinchang Village and the surrounding area are joining the breeding industry. At present, more than 60 households in the village have joined as shareholders, and more than 20 breeding households in the village have 5 or more head of livestock on hand. Cattle farming has become the village's main wealth-building industry.
Xiong Tingbo, excerpted from China Qianxinan Network