Tiny duck feet blaze a new trail to prosperity

A small village, a group of impoverished villagers, relying on the production of duck-foot wraps, this distinctive local delicacy, to accelerate their escape from poverty toward prosperity. On November 7, the reporter walked into this village - Changyangpu Village, Changyangpu Town, Shaoyang County - and saw cured meat aromas filling every home, tantalizing the taste buds. Village Party branch secretary Qu Zhijun explained that the duck-foot wraps produced in the village have become a delicacy that can appear both on high-end hotel tables and on ordinary people's dinner tables, with total annual output reaching 100 tons and revenue of more than 8 million yuan.

Ever-growing scale

Changyangpu duck-foot wraps are very famous among distinctive local flavor snacks, with a heritage spanning over a thousand years, and enjoy the reputation of "Lingnan lychee king, Shaozhou duck-foot wrap."

"Ten years ago, Changyangpu Village was still very poor, and at that time only 3 households in the village processed and sold duck-foot wraps," Qu Zhijun said. In recent years, the local Party committee and government have guided and helped villagers process and produce duck-foot wraps, and villagers have gradually tasted the benefits. Today, nearly all of the village's 368 households process and sell duck-foot wraps, accounting for 80% of the town's output.

When the reporter interviewed her, villager Li Xiaorong had just returned home after delivering goods to a star-rated hotel in Shaoyang City, fine beads of sweat still on her face. Talking about making duck-foot wraps, she spoke quickly and frankly: "I haven't rested for a single moment from morning to night every day, but the returns are pretty good." A few years ago her husband fell ill, and the more than 100,000 yuan in medical expenses was all "fished" out of duck-foot wraps. After her husband passed away, Li Xiaorong processed and sold about 5 tons of duck-foot wraps each year, earning more than 100,000 yuan, single-handedly supporting a family and raising two children. Her daughter is now in university and her son is in junior high school.

Duck-foot wraps have brought rolling wealth to Changyangpu Village, and villagers have successively escaped poverty and become prosperous.

An ever-stronger brand

Changyangpu Village's duck-foot wraps use a traditional recipe, wrapping duck gizzard, duck liver and cooked meat onto duck feet with duck intestine, then smoking and roasting them over firewood. In villager Luo Shenglin's roasting room of more than 50 sq m, nearly 200 kg of duck-foot wraps were being roasted. When the reporter asked whether there was any problem with sales, Luo Shenglin laughed heartily: "Now the duck-foot wrap brand is very strong, there's no worry about sales at all. I just wait at home for customers' calls, and it's often in short supply." Luo Shenglin's family processes about 8 tons of duck-foot wraps a year, of which 40% are sent by express delivery to all parts of the country, and 60% are delivered door-to-door to customers within Shaoyang City.

Li Caihong, director of the Changyangpu Town CPPCC Liaison Working Committee, told the reporter that Changyangpu duck-foot wraps have a mellow taste and are quite chewy, promoting salivation and appetite, and many people love to eat them. The local Party committee and government have also promoted them through the internet, television and other channels, making the Changyangpu duck-foot wrap brand ever stronger.

"In May this year, the crew of CCTV Channel 4's 'Traveling Across China' program even came to our village and interviewed us about duck-foot wrap food culture!" Luo Shenglin's wife Li Lianying said proudly.

An ever-widening road to prosperity

In order to continuously make the duck-foot wrap, a local specialty industry, bigger and stronger, Changyangpu Village also organized and established a spicy products processing cooperative and the Changyangpu Jiaowei Duck-Foot Wrap Food Company, introducing modern equipment and techniques for sterilization and fine packaging. Duck-foot wraps quickly became a major pillar industry locally, with products sold far away to more than 50 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou and Kunming, and also taken abroad by returning natives visiting relatives, "walking" onto foreigners' dinner tables.

At the same time, villagers continually improved their production methods and successively launched new products. "Besides making duck-foot wraps, my family also makes about 20 dried ducks and around 400 duck gizzards on an average day," said villager Luo Hongyang. A few years ago, his family of 7 was still crowded into two old mud-brick houses; by processing duck-foot wraps, dried ducks and duck gizzards, they have now built a two-story house, with a daily net income of nearly 1,000 yuan.

Duck product production has also driven the development of the breeding industry. Now Changyangpu Village has about 250 duck-raising households, and the whole village produces more than 20,000 ducks a year, with revenue of nearly 1 million yuan.