Fengxian County–A Model for China's New Countryside
Creating a Desirable Lifestyle
In Fengxian County, the sense of innovation and zeal among the people and the authorities to change the status quo of rural life is palpable.
Soon after entering Xuzhou, a key city of Jiangsu, a well-arranged development zone can be seen on the right side of the road. New modern buildings and those under construction shadowed by trees, as well as ribbons of landscape create a striking picture.
In fact, signs of building habitable communities can be found in every village and town of Fengxian County. Take Liangzhai Town for example: The main street has been broadened to 50 meters, buildings along the street retain an antique beauty, even the trees on the sidewalks are precious species and grow in attractive shapes. In addition, a 1.5-square-kilometer lakeside park is under construction. According to Wang Lei, secretary of Liangzhai Town Party Committee, a number of construction projects, including a wetland park and an apple-picking garden, will be built in the town. These new amenities will not only improve the local environment, but also attract agritourists to the area for a slice of pastoral life.
Nearby Xinghua Village is a new conglomerate of four villages housing about 1,000 families in total. As well as saving land in this way, the move to merge these villages has produced a financial reward. According to a regional policy, the local community will be awarded RMB 1.5 million for every one hectare of land saved. The creation of Xinghua Village saved 20 hectares of land thereby generating a return of RMB 30 million. Earmarked for the construction of affordable housing for the villagers, it enabled each family to acquire a new home for just RMB 20,000.
Modern buildings, top-notch facilities and beautiful scenery are all very well; but the pressing question is, under this shiny exterior, are the local people happy?
Since China’s reform and opening-up in 1978, rural areas have been confronted by increasingly severe social problems. To seek more job opportunities and better wages, a multitude of young men from rural areas have moved to economically developed coastal areas for work, leaving women, children and the aged at home. As a result, problems like long-term family separation, failing children’s education, and large numbers of “empty-nest elderly” have caused numerous social issues such as family breakdown, increased accidents amongst children and mental health problems.
Fengxian County is making great efforts to solve these problems. To develop the local economy, the county is trying to win back locals who currently work elsewhere by offering decent pay packages and better public services, so that they have no need to stay in unfamiliar territory forever.
Sulida and Baishili, two local manufacturers of electric tricycles, both employ more than 500 local people; even skilled technical posts are filled by local workers. After receiving basic training, assemblers can earn about RMB 3,000 per month, which is close to the salary of a migrant worker in the coastal cities. The monthly pay of a welder is RMB 6,000, which equals that of a white-collar employee in Beijing’s state-owned institutions. Some experienced workers can earn RMB 8,000 per month, rivaling the pay of department directors in governmental agencies of Beijing and Shanghai.
The county’s electric automobile industry has employed more than 40,000 local people, while employees working in the region’s wood-processing industry have exceeded 100,000 people, each on an average monthly salary of RMB 2,000-3,000. Enticed by more attractive job prospects at home, most locals who left to work elsewhere have returned to the county for employment.
In addition, controlled-environment agriculture (CEA)such as greenhouse vegetable cultivation has attracted a large labor force. After renting some land from local farmers, Liu Daofeng, a resident of the county town, built 30 greenhouses in Xinghua Village and hired 50 farmers to work there. A farmer can earn around RMB 30,000 per hectare annually through leasing land to greenhouse farming contractors (the financial yield through growing grain is only RMB 12,000 per hectare). Moreover, one can earn roughly RMB 1,500 per month working in a greenhouse. Currently, about half the village’s 135-hectare cultivated land has been transferred to contractors by this method.
Although the total area of Xinghua Village has decreased by 10 hectares, the average living space per person has reached 40 square meters thanks to the construction of four-story residential buildings. Besides fine gardens, the residential area is served with a kindergarten, supermarket, restaurant and fiber-optic network. Public security and cleaning services are free to use.
In addition to benefiting from modernization, residents there can still carry out traditional farm work. There are public warehouses for them to store agricultural equipment, auditoriums to hold public meetings, weddings or funerals, and what’s more, to a certain extent, residents are free to choose their neighbors; relatives and friends can live near each other, making it more convenient to visit or help.
The village has also made headway in environmental protection schemes. It has its own sewage treatment works, and a government-funded methane-generating plant is under construction that will produce combustible gas from straw, rice husk and wood remnants to satisfy the living needs of the entire village. By the time the plant is operating, farmers will no longer need to burn their waste but can sell it to the methane-generating plant instead. This will both increase their income and reduce environmental pollution.
Such a village serves as inspiration for the entire nation to build new, sustainable countryside.
