Passion fruit fragrance paves the way for farmers to prosperity
"Planting 9 fen of passion fruit can bring in 13,000 yuan, more than double the usual 5,000 yuan income from 1 mu of passion fruit. This is not bragging, someone really has done it." The person Lan Hua, Party secretary of Oudong Township, was talking about is Tao Shikang, a villager of Dadongtun, Limiao Village, Oudong Township, Xincheng County. He is a well-known local passion fruit planting king and a Party member prosperity leader who has led villagers to grow passion fruit and embark on the road out of poverty toward prosperity.
On June 23, when the author met Tao Shikang, he was weeding, pruning and trimming leaves in the passion fruit base. "This patch is the passion fruit I planted. Last year I planted 4 mu and it sold out. This year I expanded by another 8 mu, and I expect income of 10,000 yuan per mu." Tao Shikang said, pointing to the passion fruit in front of him. Looking in the direction he pointed, the author saw rows of passion fruit trellises neatly arranged, with passion fruit vines winding around the trellises in a lush green stretch, and fist-sized passion fruits hanging under the green leaves, giving off an enticing fruity fragrance.
It is reported that Tao Shikang is a true farmer and has been a Party member for 21 years. Previously he had not found a path to prosperity, and only raised silkworms at home or went out to work to make a living. It was not until 2012, when he heard a friend say that growing passion fruit was very profitable, that he developed the idea of planting passion fruit. In 2013, he successfully planted more than 2 mu of passion fruit. Because he had no experience, the first year's fruiting was poor, with income of less than 1,000 yuan per mu.
"If others can succeed, why can't I? Where is the problem? If I give up when I encounter difficulties, am I still a Party member?" He often asked himself this, looking for the reasons for failure. Hard work pays off. After more than a year of effort and exploration, he finally worked out a set of good experience for growing passion fruit. After that, the per-mu yield of passion fruit grew higher and higher, and his income grew larger and larger. Tao Shikang's story of becoming rich by growing passion fruit spread among the people, and many people, unafraid of the long distance, went deep into the mountains to learn from him.
Tao Shikang became rich, but he did not stop moving forward. He thought: "Fighting alone makes it hard to achieve much. How can I lead the villagers to prosperity together?" So he thought of setting up a cooperative. In early 2016, through the joint efforts of Che Jinguo, a villager of Dadongtun, he established Oudong Township's first passion fruit planting cooperative, the Dongtian Passion Fruit Planting Cooperative, and at the same time encouraged poor households to join the cooperative, providing members with free services such as technical training, agricultural input purchasing and product sales. At present, the cooperative has more than 32 member households, including 5 poor households, driving 104 surrounding farmer households to develop the passion fruit industry. The whole village's passion fruit planting area has reached 824 mu. This October the passion fruit will go on the market, and the whole village's passion fruit planting income is expected to reach more than 5 million yuan.
Qin Xunlin, a poor household member, told the author that last year he planted 2 mu of passion fruit and obtained a net income of 12,000 yuan, which let him get a taste of the benefits. This year, under Tao Shikang's guidance, he joined the Dongtian Passion Fruit Planting Cooperative and expanded by 4 mu of passion fruit, with expected income of more than 40,000 yuan. "This year there is hope of shaking off poverty."
"With rural Party members such as Tao Shikang who have contributed to the fight against poverty, there should be no problem for Limiao Village to complete the task of shaking off poverty this year." Lan Hua, Party secretary of Oudong Township, said that next Oudong Township will continue to give play to the vanguard and exemplary role of veteran rural Party members in the countryside, follow the entrepreneurship and assistance model of "cooperative + base + farmer households", actively explore new paths suited to farmers escaping poverty and becoming rich, and strive to have all poor villages in the township shake off poverty by 2018.