Red Star Farm worker Zhang Xiaocai "leads the people" to wealth with a clever hand-in-hand approach
Right now everyone is busy with wheat sowing and field preparation for spring farming, but Zhang Xiaocai of the Seventh Work Station of Red Star Farm is busy looking for poverty-alleviation targets and forming assistance pairs. For the past two years, Zhang Xiaocai has helped several poor households every year, and this year he still wants to find an assistance pair with a project and business skills, and this really gave Zhang Xiaocai a headache.
When people at Red Star Farm mention Zhang Xiaocai's potato planting and processing, everyone knows a little about it. He built a potato deep-processing production line with a daily output of 100 tons, and the potatoes were snapped up by out-of-town buyers before they even left the field; when others built cattle sheds with twisted grass ropes, he built a large brick house for his dairy cows; in recent years, Zhang Xiaocai has saved some money by combining planting, breeding and processing, and at the Seventh Work Station of Red Star Farm he counts as a well-off household. But when it comes to Zhang Xiaocai leading workers out of poverty to wealth, only the elders and folks of the Seventh Work Station can explain it clearly.
Zhang Xiaocai has a standard for assistance pairs: he does not take assistance pairs arranged by leaders, he does not help those who subjectively rely on idleness, and he does not ask about those who want to escape poverty and become rich but lack courage. The poor households Zhang Xiaocai finds are all "honest people" who want to do things but lack funds, technology and projects. The exceptions are mostly special groups receiving charitable donations. Last year alone, he took out 1,620 yuan to donate to the Wenchuan earthquake disaster area and to families suffering from illness and hardship, showing his love.
Guo Ruijun's child actively joining the military is a happy event, and the neighbors all went to visit. Zhang Xiaocai also came to offer congratulations. After learning that the family had lost its support after sending the child to enlist, he voluntarily took out 3,000 yuan for him to buy a growing dairy cow to raise. Zhang Xiaocai also comforted Guo Ruijun, saying, "When your child is demobilized, he will see a herd of dairy cows." Sure enough, the next year Guo Ruijun paid Zhang Xiaocai back.
Li Guijun has good skills in growing melons, but in recent years, because his child is in university, he still has a mother at home nearing seventy years old, and his wife is in poor health, the family's burden has been growing heavier day by day. He wanted to support his family by growing watermelons, but was troubled by having neither money nor land. As it happened, Zhang Xiaocai also wanted to find a knowledgeable person to exchange experience in growing cash crops, so he took the initiative to visit Li Guijun and chat with him. After learning of his family's difficulties, he agreed to set aside two hectares of his own potato land for Li Guijun to grow watermelons. Sure enough, 2007 had little rain and plenty of sunshine, the watermelon yield was high, the melons were small and sweet, and the price was good. The net income was 26,000 yuan, and that year he shed the label of poverty. Eating Li Guijun's watermelons, Zhang Xiaocai also felt sweetness in his heart.
Zhang Rongguo wanted to raise rex rabbits, but had no skills. Zhang Xiaocai was thinking of visiting other places to see the development of potato production bases, so he found Zhang Rongguo hoping to have a companion and go with him to visit a rex rabbit breeding base to learn from experience. Not only did he learn more skills himself, but under his influence Zhang Rongguo also brought his rex rabbit breeding up to scale. Not only did breeders in surrounding districts and groups come one after another to buy, but the rabbits were also sold to Hailun, Kedong and other counties and cities, and Zhang Xiaocai's potato planting and processing project also became better and better.
Zhang Xiaode, a worker at the Seventh Work Station, was preparing to grow cucumber seeds and was looking around for land. Zhang Xiaocai's cultivated land had potatoes as the previous crop, which was very suitable for growing cucumber seeds. Having just heard this news today, Zhang Xiaocai was so happy that even his headache was gone, and he planned to set aside a few mu of his own land for Zhang Xiaode to trial-plant cucumber seeds. In Zhang Xiaocai's words, by helping others he also learned skills himself, and he would be happy to have a few more such hand-in-hand arrangements.