By Xinhua writers Tian Zijun and Li Wenzhe
ZHENGZHOU, July 14 (Xinhua) -- "Yesterday's wasteland is today's green hillside." Jiang Hongchao sang a popular local tune as he got ready for work.
Some years ago, Jiang's family from a poor village in Qiaobei Township, central China's Henan Province, barely scraped by on the pitiful returns from traditional crops. "Our place was frequently flooded. Crop yields were very much at the mercy of the weather," said Jiang.
Everything started to change for the better after Jiang followed the lead of his village Party secretary and grew peach trees on one hectare of his farmland in 2013. "In 2016, I earned more than 70,000 yuan (10,500 U.S. dollars) from the first peach harvest. Suddenly, my family was lifted out of poverty," he said.
In 2017, a poverty-relief official from Xinxiang, which administers Jiang's village, helped Jiang raise money to set up a cooperative to grow edible fungi on the peach tree branches to make more money.
Qiaobei is on the north bank of the Yellow River across from Zhengzhou, the provincial capital. The mud-covered foothills of the floodplain were less than ideal conditions for industry and brick kilns were the chief source of revenue for many years. In 2009, the once prosperous factories were closed to make way for a land reclamation project to restore the environment along the Yellow River.
For Wang Ding, the Party chief of Qiaobei, the issue then was how to help residents earn a decent living. The reality left him and his subordinate Guan Yuanqun, the Party chief of Jiang's village, with very few options: improve soil quality, grow vegetables and fruit, tread an ecologically-friendly path. Research and feasibility studies found a particular peach variety with a relatively short maturity period, ideal for local conditions.
"For those accustomed to growing traditional crops, fruit was seen as a risky endeavor," said Guan. "At first, not a single villager was even willing to accept the free seedlings we were handing out."
Guan himself became the trailblazer, planting his own plot with peaches before persuading some party cadres and villagers to do the same.
Around 5 hectares were planted that year and the following year a yield of 15 tonnes a hectare brought in more than 300,000 yuan. Seeing that it was substantially more lucrative to grow peaches than traditional crops was more than enough to incentivize the entire village. As the peach yields grew, so did the variety of the peaches and the amount villagers earned.
In 2016, more than 400 hectares of peaches had been planted, two-thirds of the village's land and putting an abrupt end to poverty.
"It's up to 530 hectares this year," said Guan, "but for sustainable growth, we have to extend the industrial chain."
The village has held Peach Blossom festivals, grows edible fungi and has a wholesale fruit market. Qiaobei now has 17 agricultural processing firms, five agricultural tourism companies, and nearly 1,200 hectares of fruit and vegetables.
"The wasteland has been transformed and an ecosystem of manufacturers and services has grown where once there was nothing," said Mao Xingming, a local businessman who grows and sells organic vegetables and fruit.
