Zunyi: Back to the Land, Technology in Hand

By staff reporter ZHAO YAYUAN

LOCATED in northern Guizhou Province, southwest China, Zunyi is famous for its liquor and a crucial meeting in the history of the Communist Party of China.

During a crisis in the Chinese revolution, CPC leaders held a politburo meeting in Zunyi from January 15 to 17, 1935, which has gone down in history as the Zunyi Meeting. The meeting established Mao Zedong's reputation as a great strategist and marked the beginning of the CPC leadership centered on Mao Zedong. From here, the CPC-led army began a strategic withdrawal to northern China, which later became known as the "10,000-li Long March" in China, and just "The Long March" to the rest of the world. The army therefore was saved and went on to play an important part in the anti-Japanese war. Zunyi is therefore famed as "City of Transition."

Zunyi gives equal importance to economic development and natural preservation.

Covering an area of 30,762 sq km, Zunyi City includes three districts, two sub-cities and 10 counties. It has a population of 7.5 million, including five million rural residents. In 2010, the municipal economic aggregate reached RMB 91.83 billion; the per-capita disposable income of urban residents reached 15,100 yuan and rural residents' net income 4,121 yuan. In recent years, as industrialized agriculture was promoted farmers' incomes have increased greatly.

Developing Industrialized Agriculture

Agriculture in Zunyi has a pivotal position in the economy of Guizhou Province. Its staple agricultural products, including grain, oil-bearing crops and tobacco, account for a quarter to a third of the total output of the province. "Zunyi developed practices that ensure high-quality agriculture, moved to large-scale agriculture, and now to industrialized agriculture," Mu Degui, secretary of the CPC Zunyi Municipal Committee, told China Today. "Industrialized agriculture is a key measure to increase farmers' incomes."

To lay a good foundation for the industrialization process, in the past five years Zunyi has enlarged its plantations of tea, vegetables, bamboo, medicinal herbs and red sorghum each by more than 66,000 hectares and boosted the annual output value of animal husbandry to RMB 10 billion. It also built a million methane tanks to power the expansion.

Meitan County is an important tea-producing area in Zunyi. Meitan Lanxin Tea Co., Ltd., established in 2001, reached an output value of RMB 78 million in 2010. It has 268 staff persons and runs over 50 sales outlets around the country. It has signed contracts with 11,900 tea farmers whose plantations cover about 2,000 hectares. Before the company was established, the county was backward in tea processing methods despite being a large and established tea grower. Lanxin General Manager Jin Xun described the situation for China Today, "The county had first-class tea, second-class processing skills, and a third-class price. Our company introduced many types of advanced equipment for standardized processing."

Today, there are over 10 large-scale tea processing companies in Meitan County. When applying for loans to construct workshops, they get interest subsidies, and were able to introduce processing equipment and improved techniques. Small companies are entitled to receive subsidies as well, for marketing or applying for organic tea certification or ISO9000 status. "From 2007 till now, our company has received as much as RMB three million from the county and municipal governments," Jin Xun said.

He has two strategies for his company. First, to further develop its competitive product "Lanxin Queshe," which is expected to generate RMB 200 million in output value and 300 million in sales revenues. The second and parallel strategy is to cooperate with related investors to establish a comprehensive tea development group with an output value exceeding a billion. The group will focus on tea food, daily health products and tourism. So far, investments in this have exceeded RMB 500 million and the workshop is under construction in Meitan Industry Zone.

According to the Zunyi Agricultural Committee, in 2010 the 148 leading industrialized agricultural companies realized an output value of RMB 9.28 billion and a sales revenue of RMB 9.02 billion. The total assets of these companies reached RMB 7.88 billion, with fixed assets of 4.23 billion. They provide 17,000 jobs and purchase RMB 3.6 billion worth of agricultural products from some 500,000 households that are part of the agricultural cottage industry.

Farmers Benefit

Zhou Chaodu, 27, is a native of Chang'an Village of Mashan Town. His family began to plant tea in the 1980s, but as he explained, "We still devoted most of our fields and energy to rice. In the off-seasons for farming we used to prepare a big pot to dry tea leaves which we sold," but Zhou added that his older brothers and sisters still had to work in cities to help support the family. Then in 2005, the family converted most of their acreage to tea growing and sold them to Lanxin Company, leaving only a small plot for vegetables. The annual net income reached RMB 100,000 for the family of seven people.

Zhou told us over 90 percent of his fellow villagers are planting tea now, thanks to the preferential policies of the local government. "Since 2003 people have been getting incentives to plant tea – 250 yuan for each mu (1/15 hectare) of tea plantation. After 2007 the government gave a one-time bonus of 120 yuan for each mu converted." The government will also grant 200 kg of organic fertilizer per mu per year to farmers who apply to grow organic tea. "Every March when the fertilizer is distributed, technicians come to provide guidance, because many farmers don't know what constitutes the organic designation."

Forty-four-year-old Zhou Chaoyou, from Qingjiang Village, Mashan Town, has a tea plantation of 20 mu and signed a contract with Lanxin Company in 2005. "Uncontracted land brings in 2,000 yuan less per mu than contracted land." Naturally his village attracts many people from 40 or 50 km away who come to work on the plantation. Zhou confirms tea planting yields higher incomes than working with rice. In 1995 he went out to work in China's expanding cities. But in 2003 he returned to take up farming again. Now his five-person family earns 70,000 to 80,000 yuan every year.

Farmers benefit a lot from being part of industrialized agricultural production, whether in tea or rice. Chen Lizhong of Yongxing Town signed a contract with Guizhou Maogong Rice Company to provide them with a special high-quality rice. "We four in the family manage 10 mu; seven to eight mu is dedicated to this special kind of rice. Each mu contracted brings us 800 to 900 yuan more than the others growing hybrid rice."

Guizhou Maogong Rice Company, established in 2004, is capable of processing 300 tons of rice a day. In 2010, its output value reached RMB 150 million. The company signed contracts with planting bases involving over 10,000 households covering 20,000 mu. "The price of normal hybrid rice is about 1.1 yuan for each jin (half of a kg), but the special kind sells for 2.3 yuan," president Zhou Jianhua said. Besides rice, the company also produces rice germ oil.

Chen Lizhong, his son and daughter-in-law all work in the company. Each of them earns 1,500 yuan every month. "In busy times, we come in from the fields to continue working in the factory. When things slacken off after harvests, we all work and live in the factory," Chen explains.

The company has 185 staff, 90 percent of whom are local farmers. Zhou Jianhua said the company's scale will double, and the annual output will reach 180,000 tons. "We will also expand the rice plantation up from its current three million mu," Zhou said, "and are scouting for areas the special kind of rice will thrive in."

Balanced Development

"The sun will not show for three days, the land is not flat for three kilometers, and the people have no more than three dimes." This saying summarizes how Zunyi's economy was confined by its harsh natural environment. Mu Degui, secretary of the CPC Zunyi Municipal Committee, explained their development plan for the next five years, which is focused on developing industry and boosting urbanization as well as extending industrialized agriculture, "We should expand the industrial chain if we want to realize industrialized agriculture. The value of agricultural products will be increased by fine processing, so farmers' incomes will increase as well."

In addition to the traditional industries like grain, oil-bearing crops and tobacco, Zunyi plans to focus on developing tea, traditional Chinese medicine materials, bamboo, dried fruit, pepper, red sorghum, vegetables, and ecological animal husbandry. It also constructed modern agricultural trial zones and an agricultural scientific and technological park.

Liquor, energy and equipment manufacturing are also leading industries in Zunyi. The city has constructed 17 industrial parks which aggregate field resources and factors of production to support the development of industry. These will accommodate Zunyi's ongoing expansion and are located in areas around the high-speed railway, railway station and airport that are under construction. The old urban area covers 65 sq km, but annexed territory will stretch that to over 70 sq km. Each county seat will be two sq km larger than it is now. This expansion is expected to aggregate population and productivity for the benefit of all.

Zunyi is well-known as a city of gardens and forests, and is one of the most popular tourism spots in China, a good reflection of its comprehensive lifestyle quality and competitiveness. Mu Degui believes development and ecological protection complement each other. "A farmer used to consume 3 mu of trees for firewood every year, so a household of four people would burn 12 mu of trees," but now over 50 percent of the city is covered by forest and our newly-constructed million methane tanks are what help preserve those forests.

"So our approach is to solve the problem at its root. We need development, but we need balanced development," Mu cautioned, adding, "When we build industrial parks, we set up sewage treatment plants and landfills. We make full use of resources and keep pollution at a minimum."