Vines of Wealth Bear Fruit of Happiness, Boosting Farmers' Incomes
A few days ago, this writer came to the Qingshuitan grape base in Jiangkou Town, Ganxian County, and saw villager Ding Xuepin already busy there, sweating profusely. "On the second day of Chinese New Year this year, I came to the base to set up trellises for the grapevines," Ding Xuepin told this writer. The grapevines on these 2-plus mu of land are his "money trees," and over the past few years they have brought earth-shaking changes to his life.
Ding Xuepin's family was once a well-known impoverished household in the village. He himself has a disability in his leg, and his wife has an intellectual disability and cannot communicate normally with others, so the whole family relied on Ding Xuepin doing odd jobs to make a living. A few years ago, Jiangkou Village developed a grape-growing industry. Ding Keliang, secretary of the village Party branch, approached Ding Xuepin, hoping he would join the other villagers in growing grapes and shed the label of poverty. That same year, Ding Keliang secured poverty alleviation funds to help Ding Xuepin plant one mu of grapes.
Industrial poverty alleviation is an effective path for targeted poverty alleviation. In recent years, due to high-speed rail construction and market town construction, Jiangkou Village's arable land has been steadily decreasing, and the little remaining arable land consists of small plots of sloped fields. Large-scale grain cultivation and livestock farming could not gain traction, so changing the industrial structure became an urgent priority. So what kind of industry would be more suitable for Jiangkou Village's development? To that end, the local government sent dedicated personnel to inspect the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and taking local conditions into account, ultimately decided to guide villagers toward growing grapes.
"Grapes are afraid of water, and sloped land is good for drainage, so growing grapes is more suitable for our village than anything else," Ding Keliang told this writer. With the government's help, Jiangkou Village built a hundred-mu grape-growing base in the Qingshuitang area, using a "cooperative + impoverished households" poverty alleviation model to focus support on grape growing and other advantageous income-generating industries.
At the grape base, this writer met technician Li Minbang, who was instructing villagers on fertilizing. He is a technician specially hired by the town. Whether it is fertilizing, spraying, or guiding villagers in setting up trellises, whenever there are technical difficulties or key problems, the villagers ask him to help solve them. "We source quality seedlings, build ditches and channels, and implement joint management of the grape base by both the town and village levels," Ding Keliang said. The village also supports impoverished households through preferential measures such as reduced or waived seedling fees and installment payment of rent. With their worries gone, everyone threw themselves wholeheartedly into growing grapes.
"Things are good now. The grapes I grow bring in 10,000 yuan per mu in income. In the past, that was something I wouldn't even dare to imagine. These 'vines of wealth' have borne 'fruit of happiness.'" Talking about his current income, Ding Xuepin beamed with joy. Since 2015, 61 impoverished households in Jiangkou Village like Ding Xuepin's have shed the label of poverty by growing grapes.
Today, Jiangkou Town combines grape picking with agritourism and has built the Qingshuitang grape base. Driven by agritourism, the base has become increasingly famous. The land that was once low-yield and used for a single purpose is now a modern agricultural production demonstration base integrating grape growing, picking, and sightseeing tourism.