Aerial view of Liuqiukou Village in Xinhe County, north China's Hebei Province, October 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Xiao)
SHIJIAZHUANG, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Liu Yuncai, 58, decided to retire from the Party chief of Liuqiukou Village after 16 years of hard work, as he finally led his village out of poverty.
The veteran, who made a fortune from his transportation business in the 1980s, has helped villagers establish a farming cooperative, set up a flour plant and develop a mushroom plantation industry since he was elected the Party chief of the village of about 900 people in Xinhe County, north China's Hebei Province, in 2004.
"I'm among the beneficiaries of the country's reform and opening-up drive, so it's my responsibility to help my fellow villagers make a better living," he said.
China aims to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of 2020.
HARDSHIP FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS
Liu belongs to the 16th generation of the village, where most of the people are surnamed Liu. The Liu ancestors left their home in central China's Henan Province and moved to Xinhe County to shun warfare in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to a stela standing at the east end of the village.
Located near a branch of the Haihe River, Xinhe, a former state-level impoverished county, was often ravaged by floods, drought and locusts.
Liu Genping, 81, remembered a massive flood that wreaked havoc in 1963.
"Despite working around the clock for four days, more than 20 young men failed to seal a burst section of the embankment. All the houses were washed away and crops destroyed," Liu Genping recalled.
But unlike in the past, when farmers were killed by floods and survivors were left to struggle in starvation, no casualties were caused that time as farmers were timely evacuated. The government also organized post-disaster relief and led villagers to rebuild their homes.
"It took us only two years to complete the reconstruction, a speed that had never been achieved before the founding of the New China in 1949," he said.
Following the flood, the central government mobilized efforts to harness the Haihe River. Since then, there has been no flooding there.
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
After retiring from the army in 1982, four years after China initiated its reform and opening-up policy, Liu Yuncai, in cooperation with two other villagers, bought a second-hand tractor to transport construction materials for local plants and harvest grains for farmers.
In 1984, the three assembled the first truck in the village for their booming business.
"The truck attracted many onlookers. It was breaking news back then," he recalled.
In the following years, Liu Yuncai bought three more trucks, hired more than 10 drivers. Following his example, nearby villagers also started their own transportation businesses.
In 2004, he was elected the Party chief of Liuqiukou, then an impoverished village with huge piles of garbage, aging water pipes and muddy roads.
"I felt the responsibility," he said.
The village, where a quarter of the nearly 400 households were registered as impoverished, was listed as a key state-level village for poverty alleviation in 2014.
Liu Yuncai said the village fell short in labor forces as most young men had gone out to work in cities, prompting the village to establish a farming cooperative.
The farming team of the cooperative, which is in charge of the seeding, fertilizing, irrigation and harvesting of the village's farmland, has greatly reduced farming costs and saved labor forces.
From 2014 to 2015, the cooperative set up 100 greenhouses for mushroom plantation.
A local villager carries a box of mushrooms in Liuqiukou Village in Xinhe County, north China's Hebei Province, October 20, 2020. (Xinhua/ Wang Xiao)
Liu Xuezhong, who is unable to work in bigger cities because of poor health, works in the greenhouses now, earning over 2,000 yuan (about 304 U.S. dollars) per month.
"Although the government has guaranteed my basic living needs, I'm happy to make my fortune with my own hands," said the 48-year-old.
A flour plant with an annual production capacity of over 50 tonnes was set up by the cooperative in 2016, bringing an annual income of 100,000 yuan to the village.
In 2018, the cooperative signed contracts with all the farmers to use their farmland, pledging them a minimum annual dividend of 12,000 yuan per hectare.
Other industries developed in the village include a chicken-raising project and a photovoltaic power station -- a poverty alleviation project that sells the generated power to the State Grid.
With a rising collective revenue that now adds up to 550,000 yuan every year, the village has cleared the piled garbage, improved water and power facilities and built paved roads.
The village successfully shook off poverty in 2019, when its the annual per capita income almost doubled to 12,050 yuan from the level in 2014.
Benefiting from various industries developed, Xinhe County saw its fiscal revenue skyrocket from 30 million yuan in 2012 to 500 million yuan in 2019, the same year the county was removed from the poverty list.
China's rural poor population decreased from 98.99 million by the end of 2012 to 5.51 million by the end of 2019, with the poverty ratio in rural regions dropping from 10.2 percent to 0.6 percent.
This April, Liu Penghui, Liu Yuncai's son, took over the post of village Party chief.
"As the 17th generation of the village, I'll do my best to attract more young men to return home and work together to make our village an even better place," said the 32-year-old. ■
