Shandong Pingyuan Santang: Planting Greenhouse Vegetables, Striving Together for a Better Life
Early in the morning on May 15, Liu Yuping of Liutun Village, Santang Township, Pingyuan County, paying no mind to the muddy roads, brought her daughter-in-law to her family's poverty-alleviation greenhouse to pick ripe tomatoes and sell them at the vegetable wholesale market. An income of more than 100 yuan a day has lifted her out of the gloom of falling back into poverty due to illness, and she is full of drive.
Liu Yuping, 49, originally had a complete family, but a misfortune several months ago deprived her of the family's "pillar," and she instantly felt the sky had "collapsed." "Her husband Liu Lianfeng suffered brainstem necrosis and suddenly passed away. Her father-in-law has femoral head necrosis, her mother-in-law has uremia, and there is also a granddaughter in university. You can imagine what life was like for the family," introduced Hou Xuejun, Party branch secretary of Liutun Village, Santang Township.
Liu Yuping, who fell back into poverty due to illness, became one of the 689 impoverished people in Santang Township, Pingyuan, after being screened layer by layer by the county and township poverty-alleviation departments. In view of the fact that she has the ability to work and fell back into poverty due to illness, she was selected as one of the 292 people in Santang Township lifted out of poverty through protected vegetable cultivation.
The protected vegetable cultivation poverty-alleviation base in Santang Township currently covers 8 villages including Liutun, Luzhuang and Zhangyan, among which the Liutun vegetable greenhouse area where Liu Yuping is located covers about 260 mu, with 14 winter-warm greenhouses and 17 vegetable arch sheds. The greenhouses mainly grow cucumbers, melons, zucchini, kidney beans and other vegetables and fruits in rotation and intercropping. The targeted poverty-alleviation policy formulated by the county and township stipulates that poor households and their children have priority in planting; if they are unable to plant, they can work in the sheds contracted by non-poor households to earn pay, and contracting households pay fixed rent to the village collective each year for distribution as dividends to poor households without the ability to work. In the base, each vegetable arch shed can yield a net profit of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per year, and each winter-warm greenhouse can generate a net profit of 50,000 to 80,000 yuan per year; farmers can increase their income by more than 1 million yuan from this item alone.
Liu Yuping, who contracted two vegetable arch sheds, led her daughter-in-law and father-in-law in trying to grow protected vegetables. Since contracting them last year, under the assistance and guidance of the county and township poverty-alleviation departments, she has produced one crop each of zucchini and tomatoes cumulatively, increasing income by more than 20,000 yuan in total.
"From these two contracted sheds, I've now picked more than 1,000 yuan worth of tomatoes. Counting the zucchini planted last year and after deducting the 1,200 yuan greenhouse rent, one mu can earn more than 7,000 yuan, much better than growing grain. This can cover my parents-in-law's daily treatment and the family's food and clothing. These sheds are now our family's 'pillar.'" Liu Yuping said.
In Liutun Village, Liu Yuping's household is not the only one that has straightened its back because of growing poverty-alleviation greenhouses. "Hou Zhifeng, a poor household designated by the city, contracted a winter-warm greenhouse and has just sold one crop of zucchini. Previously, when his mother went to the hospital, he had to borrow money from door to door. A while ago, when his mother was hospitalized for high blood pressure, he took money out of his pocket and paid the hospitalization fee." Talking about the changes in the village's poor households, Hou Xuejun was beaming with excitement.
Seeing that protected vegetable poverty alleviation has produced obvious results, Liutun Village in Santang Township will continue to expand the planting scale this year, investing more than 2 million yuan to build 58 new winter-warm vegetable greenhouses and vegetable arch sheds, driving more farming households out of poverty and toward prosperity.
Protected vegetable poverty alleviation is one of the four industrial poverty-alleviation measures in Santang Township, Pingyuan County. Since the beginning of this year, the two levels of government in Pingyuan County and the township have taken "industrial poverty alleviation" as the focus of poverty-alleviation work, accurately identifying poor households, applying policies suited to each person, and providing targeted assistance, launching a "combined punch" of poverty-alleviation measures.
"Among the impoverished people in our township, apart from the 95 covered by policy-based guaranteed assistance, for the remaining 594 impoverished people, we will drive two categories of impoverished people out of poverty through four types of projects: photovoltaic poverty alleviation, vegetable poverty alleviation, planting and breeding poverty alleviation, and enterprise poverty alleviation. Our policies have now become the 'pillar' of poor households' families, holding up a sky for them." said Wei Kaizhang, Party secretary of Santang Township.