Two Villages Emerge From Poverty – and Pollution – With Online Sales

It's a hot afternoon when Zhong Qilan walks out of his house sweating in the sun to check out his navel oranges that cover about 10 hectares of a mountainous area in Jiangxi province. "In November, these oranges will turn yellow and it'll be the time for harvest," says Zhong, 51, pointing to the oranges on trees that are still green. In this small village of Nantian, in Jiangxi's Huichang county, Zhong has been growing navel oranges since 2004.

Now, his annual income is 1.5 million yuan ($230,000). It was 70,000 yuan earlier. Other than the fruit farm, Zhong raises fish and livestock, which bring him about 1 million yuan a year. For more than 50 years, fish farming was the only industry that generated income for local villagers, says Zhong, who was born and grew up in Nantian.

Thanks to a poverty alleviation campaign in the village, the past three years have seen incomes increase. In addition, a narrow road running through the village has been upgraded, wasted patches of farmland are being reused, garbage is being taken out of nearby rivers and new homes are being built for the villagers. Zhong's 30-year-old son, Zhong Pengxiang, who graduated from Nanchang Vocational Animal Science and Veterinary College, started selling navel oranges via online shopping platforms, such as Taobao of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, about three years ago.

The move helped increase their sale of oranges from 50,000 to 300,000 kilograms by 2016.

"I couldn't imagine such a big change in the village. I am just one of those who benefitted from the poverty alleviation campaign," says Zhong Qilan. Like Nantian, Daxiba is another village in Huichang that has transformed from a poverty-stricken place to one with lush lotus-covered landscape. Before the anti-poverty campaign, Daxiba was struggling below the poverty line, which is measured in China at an annual individual income of 2,855 yuan.

In a grocery store near a local government building in the village, it's hard to ignore a giant interactive screen that sells local crops, such as lotus seeds, rice and fruits, online.

"Modern agriculture is the key to eradicating poverty. With the support of the government, we also developed tourism in the village," says Chen Quanshan, an official in Daxiba.

The village's population is about 630.

In 2015, Daxiba started developing agricultural cooperatives, gathering local villagers and focusing on selling products online to help increase incomes and in turn develop large-scale local industries.

By the end of 2016, the villagers had lifted themselves out of poverty.


https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/two-villages-emerge-poverty-help-online-sales/

Hopefully he will expand the varieties of fruit trees he crops, and maybe expands "vertically" as well (e.g. vegetable crops, 'value adding' to products --  the fish and livestock are a good start in that direction..). "Mixed farming" systems help to level out the 'highs and lows' with both seasons and markets..

Don't want to see those producers fall into the 'monoculture'/factory farming traps, that have decimated the citrus industries so often in the past, in places like Brazil and Florida.

Monoculture farming production systems --  as seen in large parts of North America, Western Europe and Australia --  often go hand-in-hand with such problems as increasing pests and diseases, market gluts and shortfalls, deforestation/desertification, and some farmers inadverently becoming beholden to greedy seed and pesticide companies, such as Monsanto and Beyer..

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Hopefully he will expand the varieties of fruit trees he crops, and maybe expands "vertically" as well...

Don't want to see those producers fall into the 'monoculture'/factory farming traps, that have decimated the citrus industries so often in the past, in places like Brazil and Florida..

Monoculture farming production systems --  as seen in large parts of North America, Western Europe and Australia --  often go hand-in-hand with such problems as increasing pests and diseases, market gluts and shortfalls, deforestation/desertification, and some farmers becoming beholden to greedy seed and pesticide companies.

Interesting points Wolf, what sort of time scale are you talking about, if they do not expand varieties?

Its not my field, just interested to know.

Hopefully, both the farmer in the O/P and his neighbours will be expanding both the varieties within their main crops, and the types of crops, year-by-year --  his aquaculture and livestock are a step in that direction, as they can be fed on wastes from orchards and vegetable crops, and in return supply manures to those crops. Animals like sheep, goats and poultry will be used to clean up windfall fruit, and keep grass and weeds down..

If some farmers fall into a "monoculture" trap, they can find themselves using ever-increasing levels of pesticides and synthetic ferilisers after 5 to 10 years, and then have some seed companies offering them GMO seed_stock that is more pesticide tolerant (and naturally more profitable to those multinationals..).

On the other hand, a return to "mixed farming" systems --  such things as crop rotations, vegetable rotations and "succession" plantings, integrating livestock and water supplies as part of the total (rather than treating them as different entities..), strip-grazing and pasture rotations with livestock --  all of these "more traditional/old school" practices will reduce such things as pest and disease build up, pesticide resistance, soil compaction and degradation, erosion, and loss of ''biodiversity' that often follow more mechanised and 'broad scale' modern approaches..

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Hopefully, both the farmer in the O/P and his neighbours will be expanding both the varieties within their main crops, and the types of crops, year-by-year --  his aquaculture and livestock are a step in that direction, as they can be fed on wastes from orchards and vegetable crops, and in return supply manures to those crops. Animals like sheep, goats and poultry will be used to clean up windfall fruit, and keep grass and weeds down..

If some farmers fall into a "monoculture" trap, they can find themselves using ever-increasing levels of pesticides and synthetic ferilisers after 5 to 10 years, and then have some seed companies offering them GMO seed_stock that is more pesticide tolerant (and naturally more profitable to those multinationals..).

On the other hand, a return to "mixed farming" systems --  such things as crop rotations, vegetable rotations and "succession" plantings, integrating livestock and water supplies as part of the total (rather than treating them as different entities..), strip-grazing and pastire rotations with livestock --  all of these "more traditional/old school" practices will reduce such things as pest and disease build up, pesticide resistance, soil compaction and degradation, erosion, and loss of ''biodiversity' that often follow more mechanised and 'broad scale' modern approaches..

Interesting Wolf. Thanks for the info.