Turning blood transfusion into blood production to drive farmers' income growth
Villager Liu Changzhi is tending to the taro pumpkin flowers.
In Napeng Village, Dalong Town, Cenxi City, when the mountain breeze blows across the fields it carries wafts of taro fragrance, but what is planted in the fields is not taro, but pumpkins with a taro-like scent. In order to shake off poverty, Napeng Village established the Cenxi City Lvyuan Vegetable and Fruit Professional Cooperative, vigorously developing a specialty industry - the cultivation of taro pumpkins, and boosting villagers' income through the "company + professional cooperative + base + farmers" development model.
A few days ago, at the planting site of the Cenxi City Lvyuan Vegetable and Fruit Professional Cooperative in Napeng Village, villager Liu Changzhi was tending to the taro pumpkins in the field. "It is expected that the harvest period will begin in about a month," Liu Changzhi said. About two hundred taro pumpkin seedlings can be planted per mu, and based on harvest conditions in previous years, calculated at two crops per year, it is expected that each mu can yield 2000 kg of taro pumpkins.
It is reported that as early as 2009, Liu Changzhi began introducing and planting taro pumpkins in the village. Because taro pumpkins have the characteristics of high yield and easy management, even though their price is more than double that of ordinary pumpkins, due to their unique taste and flavor, they are quickly snapped up every time they come to market. Seeing the business opportunity, Liu Changzhi began continuously improving his planting methods, and over several years he also mastered the tricks of growing taro pumpkins, and hoped to further expand the planting scale and also drive other villagers to increase their income.
It is understood that Napeng Village, with a population of nearly 4000, is located in the south of Dalong Town, Cenxi City, four kilometers from the town government, with only one township-level fourth-class road leading to the town government. Although it has taro pumpkins as a specialty agriculture, due to local natural conditions, the planting scale is small and the industry's driving effect is not strong.
For this reason, Napeng Village established the Cenxi City Lvyuan Vegetable and Fruit Professional Cooperative in 2014, vigorously developing the cultivation of taro pumpkins, exploring the "company + professional cooperative + base + farmers" development model, encouraging and supporting poor households to join the cooperative, or using their land as shares, making full use of the idle land of poor households. Through policy support, poor households are driven to participate in planting, with the professional cooperative providing seedlings and technology to poor households free of charge and purchasing at guaranteed prices. On the basis of the original planting, it plans to raise 300,000 yuan to develop 200 mu of taro pumpkin cultivation, driving 25 to 30 poor households out of poverty, and expanding the planting scale will also increase the demand for rural labor, driving more farmers to increase their income and escape poverty.
Ma Hua, first secretary of Napeng Village, said that in addition to developing taro pumpkin cultivation, Napeng Village will next also develop the breeding industry, and by opening e-commerce service points, increase sales channels for agricultural products and drive poor households to increase their income. Through various poverty alleviation channels and forms, the poverty alleviation work will be transformed from a "blood transfusion" type to a "blood production" type, and from a "asking for money and goods" type to a "helping launch projects, helping build projects" type.