By TAO TUKE & staff reporter LU RUCAI
LIFE is better by far since we relocated,” said farmer Wan Zhijun of Yingde Village, Yanchi County in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Wan and his family moved to Yingde from their old home in mountainous southern Ningxia in May 2002. He now has 10 mu (15 mu = 1 hectare) of farmland capable of yielding 5,000 kg or more of grain a year. “We no longer look to heaven for food and clothing,” Wan said. He seems satisfied with his life and confident about the future when, he believes, “Life will be even better!”
Uncultivable land in the mountainous region of southern Ningxia renders it one of China’s 14 poorest regions. Caught in a long-term poverty trap, residents grasped the opportunity to move elsewhere. After their relocation, the government opened files on each poor household to provide the assistance necessary, according to the needs of each.
Poverty – a Great Motivator
Village head Wan Zhijun and other residents of Huangwa moved to Yingde on April 23, 2002. Huangwa Village had been chosen for a trial relocation project aimed at both combating poverty and restoring the natural environment. To encourage his fellow villagers to follow his suit by relocating, Wan knocked down his house and placed his household property in an open area of the village. It fitted neatly into a small tractor.
Yingde Village, their new home, is in Huamachi Town, Yanchi County in eastern Ningxia. The village now has a population of 1,854 living in 454 households, all of whom have relocated from arid areas. Yingde’s 4,205-mu of arable land has good soil and an irrigation system, guaranteeing bumper harvests. As Yingde is a relatively short distance from the city, villagers can take on casual work during slack seasons to supplement their incomes.
Wan Zhijun is now deputy Party secretary of the village committee. Over the past few years he has learnt how to use a computer and create spreadsheets. When we met him in the village committee office, he handed us the sheaf of pages that comprises his article on the grand relocation.
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Wan Zhijun and his wife now live a much better life in their new home. |
His life since the move has been pretty good. His two children have grown up and work in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province. He and his wife have constructed greenhouses where they cultivate mushrooms that have earned him enough to refurnish their house. He decided to write an account of the move, “to remember that span of time that no one should forget,” Wan said. “The relocation project enabled me and tens of thousands of other villagers to shake off poverty and live a better life,” he added.
As of end of 2015, the poverty stricken population of Ningxia had fallen by 2.9 million. Farmers’ annual net income in the central and southern parts of the region rose from RMB 3,964 in 2011 to RMB 6,500 in 2015. During this time span about 350,000 people migrated from arid areas to those more livable. For example, the Chengxitan area of Yanchi County, where Wan’s village is located, is home to more than 20,000 eco-migrants.
Yuan Jinlin, director of the Development and Reform Commission of Ningxia talked about the relocation project’s remarkable effect. “Relocation considerably improved the quality of farmers’ lives and relieved the ecological pressure on mountainous areas,” Yuan said. “Relocation has brought win-win results.”
On-target Poverty Alleviation
“After 30 years of unremitting efforts, more than 2.9 million people in Ningxia have shaken off poverty, but 700,000 people still subsist below the poverty line,” said Li Jianhua, Party secretary of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. “We are at the crucial stage of poverty reduction,” he said frankly, when talking about the complexity and obstacles of this task. “We need targeted measures to eradicate poverty at its roots.”
Since the end of 2013, China has carried out a nationwide program identifying the poverty stricken population. It has entailed individually putting on record a total of 89 million impoverished farmers, so forming the groundwork for follow-up relief work.
Constantly updating information on local poor people is one of the key tasks of Yuan Jingting, Party secretary of Gaotong Village in Xiji County of Guyuan City. “Data for just one household takes up seven to eight spreadsheets covering dozens of items, from income, loans and subsistence allowances, to pensions,” Yuan said. A year ago, more than 300 households in his village were identified as poverty-stricken and requiring assistance. Many have since successively risen out of poverty. Yuan pays such families regular visits to check on their situation. He eventually reduced the registered number of poor households to around 200.
As in any other place in China, Ningxia has formulated set criteria for measurement and identification of poverty. Those eligible must first submit applications and undergo a stringent means test before being added to a list of those who potentially qualify. People on this list then go through the processes of preliminary evaluation, review, and approval. Their names are published and can be removed at any time should their economic situation improve.
Assistance differs according to the situation of each household identified. The government has formulated a series of policies to help people living in the 1,100 villages that were identified as poverty stricken in 2014. They include allocating special funds to building homes, subsidizing agriculture, and finding new sources of income, according to Dong Ling, director of the Poverty Alleviation Office of the regional government. These policies provide all-round civil assistance to low-income families.
Poor farmers are also encouraged to start their own businesses. A village-level mutual fund has been set up in Yanchi County to finance poverty stricken farmers’ animal husbandry and fruit plantation ventures. Villagers can also establish credit records by taking out and repaying loans. In 2014, the local government started amassing the credit records of families on the poverty register. On the basis of these records they can obtain special development loans.
From relocation to on-target poverty alleviation, Ningxia has explored all relevant practices in this regard. At the start of relocation, the government envisioned its goals as helping poor people “move out of uninhabitable regions, settle down in more livable locations, and prosper in new homes.” It has accomplished all three. In early 2015, the region’s city, county and district governments signed letters of responsibility guaranteeing that by 2018 no one will live in poverty.
Nil Poverty
Eradicating poverty is China’s key goal over the next five years, and one of the biggest challenges on the road to building a moderately well-off society. For Ningxia, it means helping around 70 million people rise out of poverty by 2020.
Although China has made remarkable achievements in poverty reduction the country still has 14 large-scale poverty-stricken areas. There the population subsisting under the poverty line amounts to 70.17 million in 128,000 villages, mostly in central and western China.
Last October, President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum. He propounded implementation of on-target poverty relief work, namely, identifying poverty stricken people, arranging relief programs and funds according to specific situations, and formulating concrete measures for each village, thus to guarantee effective poverty alleviation.
Having worked in China’s least developed counties, President Xi is aware of the difficulties of poverty reduction, and has been to many poverty-ridden areas across China. To resolve their predicament the Chinese government promises to lift every impoverished person out of the poverty trap in the next five years. Specific measures include supporting industrial development, expanding employment, encouraging ecological relocation, and increasing education, medical aid, and social security input. In particular, the government will accelerate logistics construction in poor areas and encourage e-commerce companies to expand rural business. It hopes to use online platforms to sell agricultural products and make accessible to farmers the many advantages of the Internet.
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TAO KETU is deputy secretary-general of China Association of Pictorials.