How is Zhao Huidun's rice poverty-alleviation dream realized?
On April 5, spring rain fell in a fine drizzle. In Cuanhu Village, Tongjinpu Town, Cili County, Zhao Huidun, head of the Lvhe Rice Planting Professional Cooperative, and his members were busily at work. It was the season for raising rice seedlings. The reporter saw that in front of a rice seedling-tray seeding machine for seedling raising, four or five members were busy with assembly-line rice seedling raising, and in the paddy field not far away, more members were neatly placing seedling trays.
Today, assembly-line, factory-style seedling raising has become an important part of the fully mechanized rice production chain, because of its high efficiency, uniform emergence, strong seedlings and fast greening-up, it is favored by the vast number of rice growers, and Zhao Huidun is one of them.
"In the past, raising seedlings for 20 mu cost more than 10,000 yuan in labor wages. After adopting fully mechanized seedling-raising technology, the expense was cut in half." Zhao Huidun told the reporter that compared with traditional seedling-raising technology, fully mechanized seedling-raising technology can not only reduce labor intensity and solve the problem of labor shortage, but also lower agricultural costs. This year, the cooperative raised seedlings for 23 mu, and planned to plant 2,500 mu of rice, including 1,468 mu of double-season rice, 500 mu of ratoon rice, 200 mu of japonica rice trial plots, and the rest ordinary middle-season rice.
The reporter learned during the interview that Cili County Lvhe Rice Professional Cooperative was established in 2014. That year it transferred 970 mu of paddy field for rice planting. In 2015 the transferred land increased to 1,069 mu, and this year it increased again to 2,500 mu.
"I am from Cuanhu Village. I have become well-off myself, but Cuanhu Village is still a poor village, and many villagers have not yet been lifted out of poverty." Zhao Huidun believed that he "has the ability and expertise" to lead the surrounding villagers to prosper together.
On Zhao Huidun's desk, the reporter saw a "Poverty Alleviation Agreement", with Party A being the Cuanhu Village Committee of Tongjinpu Town and Party B being Cili County Lvhe Rice Planting Professional Cooperative. The agreement states: within five years, the Cuanhu Village Committee entrusts the Lvhe Rice Planting Professional Cooperative to help 27 households and 100 poor people in the village out of poverty. "Once you join the cooperative, you earn money in three ways. This is truly targeted poverty alleviation. After five years, all the poor people who signed the agreement will certainly be lifted out of poverty." Zhao Huidun was full of confidence. He explained the agreement to the reporter: the Cuanhu Village Committee takes 100 poverty-alleviation targets as a pilot, and puts each person's 1,000 yuan of poverty-alleviation funds into the cooperative as shares. The cooperative returns dividends to them each year at a rate of 20%, and after five years the principal is fully returned to the poor households. At the same time, the cooperative transfers poor households' land each year at a price of 540 yuan per mu, and hires poor households to work at the cooperative at a wage of 70 yuan per day.
"Cuanhu Village has 300 poor people in total. If the pilot succeeds, the remaining 200 will also follow this path of targeted poverty alleviation." Zhao Huidun said that the cooperative will go all out to do a good job in production and, as early as possible, lead the surrounding poor households to prosper together.