Huang Congbing, who suffers from polio, supports himself through farming

Huang Congbing at work

At 5 pm on November 5, Huang Congbing, a villager from Shizhangkong Village, Qiaoba Township, Mabian Yi Autonomous County, who had just returned from the market, came limping back along the narrow field path. The journey from the Qiaoba Township market town to his home was less than 5 km, yet he took a full 2 hours to walk it, falling down several times along the way, his clothes and trousers covered in mud.

Huang Congbing, 26 this year, is tormented by polio to the point where he cannot walk normally at all. His deformed and twisted joints, together with hands and feet he cannot control, make movement difficult for him, and even his speech function has been affected. Yet this young man with a disability stubbornly insists on walking four or five hours round trip to the township market to buy medicine for his sick sheep. "The sheep are 80% better now. My breed is too old and has poor immunity, and I'm anxious about it."

As a disabled person, going out to work is impossible, so Huang Congbing could only try raising some livestock and poultry. He told reporters that sheep mainly eat grass, and the stretches of woodland in his hometown happen to provide fresh forage and grazing grounds for the sheep. Last year he borrowed more than 20,000 yuan from an elder in the same village and bought 32 lambs to breed himself. Now the flock has reached more than 60, and before long nearly 30 more lambs will be added.

In its poverty alleviation and development work, Mabian's relevant departments, through household visits and precise identification, not only provided policy-based basic support for Huang Congbing through subsistence allowances and disability subsidies, but also recently planned to allocate 5,000 yuan to help him build a sheep shed, encouraging him to start his own business and strive to escape poverty. "I'm very grateful for the help from the Party and the government, but a person can't spend a lifetime just relying on others' help. By persisting in starting my own business, I can not only support myself but also help the villagers escape poverty together." When talking about entrepreneurship, Huang Congbing becomes very energized, because in this respect he also has some experience. In 2013, Huang Congbing initiated the establishment of a porcupine breeding cooperative. After a period of exploration and operation, 5 villagers have now joined it, and when the market is good, each household can increase its income by nearly 6,000 yuan per year.

"I've always believed that only with a dream can you succeed. If you sink into negativity because of disability, then it's not society that has abandoned you, but you who have abandoned society." During the interview, Huang Congbing repeated this sentence again and again. In his view, others' ridicule and strange looks cannot be a reason for him to stand still; instead, he must turn them into motivation to strive.

To develop a breeding business, willpower and passion alone are far from enough. In order to learn breeding techniques, Huang Congbing, who has no education, used CCTV's "Daily Agricultural Economics" and "Road to Wealth" programs as textbooks for studying and learning breeding techniques. Not only that, he also once went out of the mountains alone and traveled to farmers' markets in Leshan and Chengdu to investigate and learn, constantly trying to understand the outside world. Over time, he absorbed some breeding and business concepts that keep pace with the times. "Doing business requires honesty, and the quality of the sheep determines your market prospects." Huang Congbing believes that with the progress of the times and the improvement of everyone's living standards, organic, ecological and environmentally friendly food is increasingly welcomed by the market, and what he needs to do is care for his flock through ecological breeding.

After leading the establishment of the porcupine breeding cooperative, Huang Congbing is now preoccupied with setting up a sheep breeding cooperative. He wants to expand the scale of breeding and improve the quality of the sheep flock, but he has funding difficulties. The sheep Huang Congbing raises now belong to a breed from the 1980s. Due to long-term artificial pen feeding, the sheep's disease resistance and growth capacity are relatively weak, which is very unfavorable for further expanding the breeding scale. "Money is really tight now. I want to take out a loan of 30,000 yuan to introduce new breeds." Huang Congbing told reporters that he researched and selected the new breed himself online. These sheep not only have stronger resistance, but each can grow to two or three hundred jin, with considerable breeding returns.

At 6 pm that day, Huang Congbing packed his dinner and prepared to set off again. He had to walk more than two hours to the deep mountain forest to look after his sheep, and tonight he had to sleep together with these 60 sheep. "You ask if I'm afraid sleeping in the deep mountains. Of course I'm afraid, but to avoid losing the sheep I must do this." Facing the reporter's concern, Huang Congbing answered crisply, his gaze firm.