Yu Hui grows 500 mu of passion fruit to boost villagers' incomes and help them prosper
In the fields, in front of the houses and behind the houses of Dalou Village, Yangming Town, Heping County, bamboo-pole trellises of all sizes can be seen everywhere, row upon row, one after another, a truly spectacular sight. More importantly, hidden within the trellises are the “treasures”——passion fruit seedlings. This is an important assisted industry project of Dalou Village, carrying the hopes of farming households to escape poverty and move toward prosperity.
The development and growth of Dalou Village's passion fruit industry is closely tied to an “outsider.” This outsider is Yu Hui, an assistance cadre from Shenzhen. “He is a diligent and down-to-earth assistance cadre. Thanks to him, the village has changed so much in 3 years.” Speaking of Yu Hui, Wu Jiaqiang, a cadre of Dalou Village, was full of praise.
500 mu of passion fruit generates nearly 3 million yuan in annual output value
“Now the village's passion fruit is in short supply. This year I have chosen another plot of land to plant entirely with passion fruit and expand the scale.” At the entrance of Dalou Village, villager Peng Dongshi, busy at work, talked about his future plans.
In 2013, Yu Hui, who worked at the law enforcement team of Shatou Subdistrict, Futian District, Shenzhen, applied and came to Dalou Village. Coming from a military background, he quickly adapted to the local environment and quickly took on his role, seeking a way out of poverty for Dalou Village. After research by the assisting unit and the Dalou Village committee, passion fruit, which is less difficult to manage and has a short income cycle, was chosen as Dalou Village's main assisted industry. With the support of the assisting unit, 26,000 passion fruit seedlings were provided to villagers over 3 years, laying a solid foundation for the development of Dalou Village's passion fruit industry.
Yu Hui not only studied passion fruit cultivation techniques himself, but also regularly exchanged experience with farmers in Dalou Village. Sometimes he also invited agricultural experts to Dalou Village to give lectures, teaching villagers the basic knowledge of cultivation: how to cultivate seedlings, when to fertilize and remove pests, when flowers bloom and fruit sets, and so on. Wu Jiaqiang said that the passion fruit seedlings planted in the village this year were all cultivated by the villagers themselves, achieving self-sufficiency and saving a lot of costs.
Today, more than 160 households in Dalou Village grow passion fruit, with a planting area of about 500 mu, an annual output of more than 500,000 jin, and an annual output value of nearly 3 million yuan.
Building a diversified new socialist countryside
Passion fruit has become the leading force driving Dalou Village villagers to prosperity, but how to promote its development from a single industry to diversified development and continuously strengthen the village collective economy has become an urgent problem to solve.
To this end, the assisting unit focused on building Dalou Village's cultural, sports, educational and industrial development center through measures such as building a 3,000 sq m square, greening and renovating a 2,000 sq m primary school campus, and constructing river embankments and a cultural corridor. Yu Hui said he hopes this area will in the future become a new socialist countryside covering passion fruit production and sales, tourist reception, cultural and sports activities, village affairs services, and cultural promotion.
The assisting unit also took the development of the passion fruit industry as a starting point, implemented incentive policies, and in the passion fruit planting development area built 3 km of hardened village roads, 1 km of “three-sided” water channels and weirs and other water conservancy facilities, effectively guaranteeing the industrialized development of passion fruit. In addition, through Yu Hui's active coordination, the assisting unit also paved more than 4 km of hardened village roads for Dalou Village and installed 75 streetlights, continuously improving the village's infrastructure.
Letting left-behind children enjoy the warmth of “home”
On one occasion, Yu Hui got to know Liang Weixing, head of the Heping County Sunshine Public Welfare Service Center. After communication, the two sides decided to carry out a project in Dalou Village to care for left-behind children. Through social workers and volunteers, by means such as colorful classes, birthday parties, sports meets, artistic performances, and visits, they cared for and cultivated more than 100 left-behind children, making the children's childhood healthier and happier. At the same time, they also explored a joint working mechanism for protecting left-behind children that integrates social work organizations, parents, schools, village committees, and funders into one system.
3 years have passed. The assisting unit and social organizations not only invested more than 11.66 million yuan in poverty alleviation funds in Dalou Village, but also helped poor households find a path out of poverty toward prosperity. According to statistics, through assistance, the annual per capita net income of poor households in Dalou Village reached more than 10,000 yuan, the annual per capita income of villagers reached more than 12,000 yuan, and the village collective income reached 118,000 yuan.