28 inferior walnut trees were cut down, and Xin Jiaoyuan earned over 7000 yuan more
Xin Jiaoyuan, a walnut grower in Shanxi Province, cut down 28 inferior walnut trees, each as thick as a bowl's rim and bearing fruit, "right at the waist" four years ago despite his wife's firm opposition, and grafted high-quality, high-yield walnut varieties onto them. Two years later, Xin Jiaoyuan, who lives in Zhaizishang Village, Longjiao Township, Shilou County, Luliang City, harvested 420 jin of dried nuts from his new-variety walnut trees, sold them for nearly 9000 yuan, and earned over 7000 yuan more than he had from growing inferior walnuts.
Meanwhile, Xin Yunping, a poor household in the same village, grew nearly 20 mu of inferior walnuts, with over 2 mu having entered full bearing age, yet sold them for only just over 1300 yuan. Some villagers had 7 mu of walnut trees and earned only just over 1000 yuan in a year.
Zhaizishang Village is surrounded by mountains on two sides, with over 160 households living against the mountainsides. To alleviate poverty, the local government began supporting villagers in planting walnuts more than 10 years ago. But now, over 3000 mu of walnuts have filled the village's hillsides, yet the poverty-alleviation results have not been ideal. Only Xin Jiaoyuan not only put 3 children through university, but also became a walnut expert, earning 30,000 to 40,000 yuan a year just from grafting walnuts for others. Xin Jiaoyuan said he has never been a poor household, and what he relies on is walnut-growing technique.
At the entrance of Xin Jiaoyuan's home, there is a small walnut orchard covering 1.2 mu, with 28 trees in total. "What was planted before were inferior walnuts, big in size but small in kernel, with thick, hard shells that couldn't fetch a good price." But Xin Jiaoyuan felt this was a way out, and he couldn't let a way out become a dead end just because he knew nothing. With this in mind, 7 years ago Xin Jiaoyuan gritted his teeth, packed his bags and left home to learn walnut growing. Three years later, as soon as Xin Jiaoyuan returned home, he "beheaded" the 28 inferior walnut trees.
Xin Jiaoyuan said: "My wife firmly disagreed at the time. Trees as thick as a bowl's rim had grown for 10 years and were just at the fruiting stage. Who wouldn't feel heartache cutting them off at the waist." But in his heart he knew that although cutting the trees meant temporarily losing income, once the grafted new varieties bore fruit, the returns would increase markedly.
Longjiao Township specifically established a walnut association last year, hired Xin Jiaoyuan as its president to teach fruit growers cultivation techniques, and led more than 30 people in implementing the improvement and efficiency enhancement of 1000 mu of walnuts across the township.
Because he is responsible for the grafting work on the villagers' 260 mu of walnut trees, Xin Jiaoyuan is very afraid of something going wrong, and after a few days he can't resist going up the mountain to take a look. Looking at the stretches of bowl-rim-thick walnut trees cut off at the waist before him, 57-year-old Xin Jiaoyuan told the reporter: "In another 10 days or so, once the buds grow a bit bigger, these walnut trees can be grafted."
"What we are grafting now are all high-quality varieties like Gift No. 2 and Liaohe No. 2. Small trees only need 3 to 5 buds grafted, while large trees need 20 to 30 buds grafted, and the cost is 2 yuan per bud." Xin Jiaoyuan told the reporter that grafted new varieties can bear fruit in the 2nd year, reach full bearing age in 8 years, and each tree can produce 30-40 jin of dried nuts; but traditional varieties take nearly 10 years to bear fruit and 15 years to reach full bearing age, with each tree producing only around 10-odd jin, some not even 10 jin, and the price is also much lower than that of the new varieties.
To reduce losses for poor farmers, the Longjiao Township government subsidises farmers 100 yuan per mu of walnut land and also provides some walnut-growing insurance. "Our township has a total of over 30,000 mu of walnuts, 3 mu per capita. To give full play to the poverty-alleviation effect, we must guide the people to change their thinking and carry out comprehensive grafting and improvement." said Guo Yongdong, Party Secretary of Longjiao Township.
Similar problems exist not only in Longjiao Township but throughout the entire Luliang region. Luliang is located in the loess gully and broken-plateau area, and currently still has 480,000 poor people, making it the "hardest bone to gnaw" in Shanxi's poverty-alleviation battle. To increase farmers' income, Luliang City vigorously developed the walnut industry a few years ago, expanding by 500,000 mu each year. But while the quantity went up, the walnut varieties were very mixed, with some 1 mu of land containing six or seven varieties.
"One variety can sell for a dozen-plus yuan per jin, but mixed together it can only sell for five or six yuan." said Chen Linqiang, director of the Luliang City Poverty Alleviation Office. Because walnuts of different varieties differ in size and shell thickness, mixing them together makes them very hard to process - either the small ones don't peel cleanly during hulling, or the thin-shelled ones get scorched during drying. So mixed walnuts fetch a low price, and no one is willing to buy them.
In response to this phenomenon, Luliang City is currently implementing quality improvement and efficiency enhancement of 2 million mu of dried-fruit economic forest, but there is currently a severe shortage of local talent who understand fruit-tree techniques in each county. Although Shilou County's Longjiao Township has now established a dedicated walnut association, the only person who can truly handle the work capably is Xin Jiaoyuan alone. There is no shortage of related training, but the results fall short of expectations.
Xin Jiaoyuan said: "Everyone knows that poverty alleviation must first support people's knowledge, but the key is how to make the support effective. Quite a lot of training has been carried out, and experts have been invited, but after listening the ordinary people are still the same as before, simply because they have no foundation and cannot understand." When he learned techniques back then, his master taught him hand-to-hand in the field, which made it easy to pick up, so supporting knowledge must also be down-to-earth and vigorously promote field teaching. "Take walnut grafting, for example: it must be completed within a few dozen seconds, otherwise oxidation of the cut surface will reduce the survival rate. If you just sit indoors and talk about it (without mastering the key techniques), talking is useless."