Meat pigeon farming helps impoverished households in Zhangqiao Village shake off poverty
"My meat pigeons have already started laying eggs, and next month the squabs will hatch and I'll be making money!" On July 9, standing in front of his pigeon cages, Zhang Guomin, an impoverished household in Zhangqiao Village, Zhangqiao Town, Zhecheng County, said happily. In targeted poverty alleviation, Zhecheng County does not take a one-size-fits-all approach, but instead adapts to local conditions and guides development according to circumstances, relying on leading enterprises, specialized cooperatives, family farms and specialized large-scale farmers to gradually form a poverty alleviation model of "one village, one specialty." Zhangqiao Village, relying on the village's meat pigeon farm, has become a specialized village for poverty alleviation through meat pigeon farming.
Zhangqiao Village originally had 133 impoverished households with 458 impoverished people. After two years of poverty alleviation in 2014 and 2015, there are now 51 households with 139 people still not out of poverty, and the plan is to achieve overall poverty alleviation and exit from the poverty list in 2017. The village-stationed officials from the Propaganda Department of the Zhecheng County Party Committee, the poverty alleviation assistance unit of Zhangqiao Village, and the first secretary stationed in the village from the Municipal Salt Industry Bureau, in accordance with the requirements of the Zhecheng County Party Committee, actively thought up ways and found paths for impoverished households.
Zhang Tao, a villager of Zhangqiao Village, went elsewhere to learn meat pigeon farming techniques a few years ago, and in 2014 built a meat pigeon farm south of Zhangqiao Village. Now, Zhang Tao's meat pigeon farm has a monthly net income of about 50,000 yuan, with very good returns. When Zhang Tao was building the farm in 2014, to help him solve funding difficulties, Shi Yunjie, the mayor of Zhangqiao Town, once used his own salary card as collateral to secure a loan of 200,000 yuan for Zhang Tao. Zhang Tao sincerely supports the work of the Party and the government. The rapid development of the pigeon farming business in the past two years has objectively also required Zhang Tao to expand the scale of farming.
It was almost an instant match. With the matchmaking of the village-stationed officials, Zhang Tao quickly reached a "company + farming household" poverty alleviation development model with impoverished households. Zhang Tao provides each impoverished household with 40 pairs, or 80 birds, of high-quality breeding pigeons, helps the impoverished households build pigeon cages at home, provides farming techniques and epidemic prevention medicines free of charge, and signs agreements to ensure the purchase of the pigeons raised by the farming households. The money for the farming households to buy the 40 pairs of breeding pigeons is subsidized by funds from the "income increase for households" project.
This poverty alleviation measure was warmly welcomed by the farming households of Zhangqiao Village: with government subsidy funds, they did not spend a single cent of their own money, and 40 pairs of breeding pigeons were delivered into the pigeon cages in their own courtyards; meat pigeon farming, unlike raising ducks and pigs, does not have a foul odor, and only needs a slight cleaning every day, so the air in the courtyard is fresh and free of odor; the corn and wheat fed to the meat pigeons every day are readily available at home, so there is no need to worry about buying feed; for technical problems and epidemic prevention problems, Zhang Tao comes to their homes to provide guidance... The key point is that through breeding and growth, 40 pairs of breeding pigeons can basically guarantee a net income of 10,000 yuan per year.
After farming for a short period, the impoverished household Zhang Huaying also innovatively placed a few chickens at the very bottom of her pigeon cages. Pigeons are picky eaters, and when eating they peck some wheat and corn down, which is just right for the chickens below to eat. In this way, Zhang Huaying not only saved herself the trouble of cleaning up the leftover feed that the pigeons dropped on the ground every day, but also fattened a few chickens.
The meat pigeons first distributed to impoverished households in March this year have now all begun laying eggs. Next month, squabs will hatch. Counting on his fingers, Zhang Tao did the math for the reporter: 40 pairs of breeding pigeons hatching 80 squabs, calculated at the current price of 15 yuan to 22 yuan per 18-day-old meat pigeon, means villagers can earn 1,200 yuan to 1,760 yuan next month. Zhang Tao said that the prospects for meat pigeon farming are now very good, and that running around to work as a migrant laborer is not as good as staying at home and raising a flock of meat pigeons. Now, many villagers in Zhangqiao Village who are not impoverished households also want to raise meat pigeons to get rich.
The meat pigeon farming poverty alleviation method formed by Zhangqiao Village is part of Zhecheng County's industrial poverty alleviation project. At present, through forms such as leading enterprises, specialized cooperatives, family farms and specialized large-scale farmers, new types of business entities establishing stable contractual relationships and interest-linking mechanisms with impoverished households, Zhecheng County has already created various industrial poverty alleviation models such as "individual enterprise + impoverished household," "specialized cooperative + impoverished household," and land transfer, and is gradually forming an industrial poverty alleviation model of "one village, one specialty." In addition to Zhangqiao Village developing into a specialized village for meat pigeon farming, Zhangji Village in Zhangqiao Town has developed into a specialized village for apple planting, and Chenlou Village in Yuanxiang Town has developed into a specialized village for sheep farming.