Ecological free-range chicken farming helps Shencun Village escape poverty and grow prosperous
In the photo, Wang Shixue (first from left) explains his "chicken-raising know-how."
Wang Shixue, 44, is from Bangshang Group in Shencun Village, Baimao Township, and is a poor household with a family of four. After he suffered two traffic accidents in 2002 and 2006, all the farm work at home fell on his wife alone, and he still had an elderly mother and a daughter in school to care for. In 2015, with the help of the poverty alleviation work team stationed in Shencun Village, he borrowed money from relatives and friends to buy 2,000 chicks to raise free-range chickens, and learned breeding experience from Zhu Chuanyin, a large chicken farmer in the same township. "Last year, I raised 2,000 free-range chickens. With help from the village in selling them, sales revenue reached 110,000 yuan." Wang Shixue said happily when a reporter interviewed him at home a few days ago.
At the beginning of this year, when Huang Changshui, a vice county magistrate serving at Sinopec, came to Shencun Village to investigate the collective economy of the poor village and the industrial development of poor households, he brought good news to the village. He said support funds for industrial assistance would be given to the village collective and poor households, and he put forward the guiding opinion that "large households with mature experience should lead the way, the village collective should take shares, and poor households should participate, in order to develop an ecological free-range chicken project." Through household surveys and visits to poor households, the village poverty alleviation work team and the village two committees learned that farmers strongly approved of the earlier approach to developing ecological free-range chickens. The village poverty alleviation work team decided to expand the scale of ecological free-range chicken farming, and after careful discussion formulated the "Shencun Village Free-Range Chicken Farming Project Plan" and a detailed "Free-Range Chicken Farming Project Implementation Plan."
According to Hu Yilin, a cadre selected by the county discipline inspection commission and first secretary of Shencun Village, the village followed the industrial poverty alleviation approach of "funds follow the poverty alleviation targets, poverty alleviation targets follow capable people, capable people follow industrial projects, and industrial projects follow the market," enabling poor households to achieve "zero risk" and "stable income growth." Giving full play to the role of Sinopec poverty alleviation project funds, the village two committees decided to use the operating model of "cooperative + capable large households + poor households." The cooperative undertakes the industrial poverty alleviation project, uniformly provides chicks and feed, provides free technical services throughout the process for poor households, and guarantees the buyback of all adult chickens and eggs. The cooperative bears all the risk, letting poor households raise chickens with peace of mind, make money steadily, and truly escape poverty.
On April 12, the village poverty alleviation work team, the "Yuexi County Shencun Village Hongshulin Breeding and Planting Cooperative," and eight poor households including village chicken farming large households Wang Jian and Wang Shixue, Liu Wenge of Chagou Group, and Wang Suping of Canhe Group, in accordance with the development goals of "innovation, green, coordination, poverty alleviation, and escaping poverty," respectively signed contracts for joint-stock farming between the village collective and large households, joint-stock farming between large households and poor households, contracts for large households to lead and guide poor households in farming, labor contracts for poor households to join the cooperative and work for large households, purchase-and-sale contracts between the cooperative and poor households, and a poverty alleviation guarantee letter signed by the "four parties" together.
In recent days, good news has kept coming in Shencun Village: "So-and-so's photovoltaic system has also been connected to the grid"; the chicken sheds of Wang Liang, Yu Wencan, and Yu Shaoli in Banbi have also been built; Wang Shixue and Xu Zhigao in Bangshang have ordered another 3,000 free-range chicks; and the expanded chicken shed equipment that a large farming household in Chagou Group guided two poor households to buy online has arrived...
"With the favorable national support policies, the people of our Shencun Village will soon all be able to live good lives." During the interview, many villagers in the deep mountains of Shencun Village happily told the reporter.
The chick shed Wang Shixue built himself.
Wang Shixue's free-range chickens raised in the mountain forest.