The Change Of Mountains And Towns: The Record Of Industrial Poverty Alleviation In Dongxiang County, Gansu Province

Restricted by the natural and geographical conditions, as well as the lack of resources and backward ideas, Dongxiang has become the region with the deepest degree of poverty in China. There was even a saying that "the national poverty alleviation depends on Gansu, Gansu's poverty alleviation depends on Linxia, and Linxia's poverty alleviation looks at Dongxiang".

On the evening of October 25, the spring and summer 2021 China International Fashion Week ushered in a public fashion show in Beijing - "gifted mother × Dongxiang xiuniang" · Zhang Zhaoda public fashion show. The main colors of the show are bright yellow, emerald green, pink, turmeric, dark green, blue and so on, which are full of national impression, and are integrated into the traditional embroidery pieces made by Dongxiang xiuniang with national crafts such as "plain embroidery", "colorful embroidery" and "cut flowers", which make the audience refreshing.

This is the first time that Dongxiang xiuniangs have stepped out of the mountain.

Ten xiuniangs come from Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, more than 1500 kilometers away. The average altitude here is more than 2100 meters, belonging to the "three regions, three states" deep poverty-stricken areas. These embroidered women are all housewives, some from poor families. Although they have mastered the traditional embroidery skills, they have not worked for a long time and can not bring income to their families.

In recent years, the government departments and all walks of life have invested a lot of manpower and material resources to help Dongxiang get rid of poverty. In the work of poverty alleviation, enterprises have the characteristics of strong capital strength, strong market awareness and strong mobilization ability. They can play an important role in supporting industries and helping employment, which is also an indispensable part of poverty alleviation work.

In Dongxiang, many foreign enterprises have participated in the work of poverty alleviation. Dongxiang xiuniang was able to participate in this public fashion show with the help of country garden group, aiming to further promote Dongxiang embroidery brand.

Behind this, country garden not only involved in the embroidery industry of Dongxiang County, but also had deep assistance in Dongxiang potato, Dongxiang sheep and other industries. At the same time, we should pay attention to education and try to achieve a long-term effect of "supporting intelligence".

The villagers in bulenggou, Dongxiang, Gansu Province, have increased their income and laughed. IC photo

Natural conditions and industry short board

Dongxiang County, located at the intersection of the Loess Plateau and the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, is the only ethnic autonomous county with Dongxiang Nationality as the main body in China, with a population of 300000.

Restricted by the natural and geographical conditions, as well as the lack of resources and backward ideas, Dongxiang has become the region with the deepest degree of poverty in China. There was even a saying that "the national poverty alleviation depends on Gansu, Gansu's poverty alleviation depends on Linxia, and Linxia's poverty alleviation looks at Dongxiang".

In the new round of poverty alleviation, solving the problem of draught has become the focus of Dongxiang's "two don't worry". Through continuous construction, the Yellow River and Taohe River are led up to the high mountain ridge, and the water pipelines are laid to the remote mountainous areas. At present, the framework of Dongxiang water source project and water supply network has been formed, and the rate of tap water entering households has reached 93.7%. The unified water price of 126 yuan per household is implemented every year, and the consumption is unlimited.

At the same time, the improvement of road traffic and other infrastructure has greatly shortened the time distance between Dongxiang and the outside world. Today, it only takes about two hours to drive from Lanzhou to Dongxiang County.

After realizing the most basic "two don't worry about three guarantees" and initially solving the traffic problems, Dongxiang has the foundation to achieve long-term poverty alleviation. But for an area with weak industrial foundation and lack of market awareness, it is not easy to establish industry and realize self hematopoietic development.

In recent years, with many enterprises involved in Dongxiang poverty alleviation work, this short board is gradually being made up.

In May 2018, dongbiyuan officially intervened in the work of poverty alleviation. According to Zhang Tao, leader of the Dongxiang poverty alleviation group of country garden, the working group has grown from six full-time poverty alleviation workers to about 20 now. Most of them are transferred from the country garden Lanzhou area, and a few from the company headquarters.

According to the specific requirements of targeted poverty alleviation put forward by government departments, country garden will focus on helping Dongxiang County to create characteristic projects. In addition to embroidery industry, it will also develop agricultural industrialization dominated by sheep breeding and potato planting in Dongxiang County. Strive to achieve fundamental poverty alleviation through supporting industries.

This is a significant but difficult task.

Consciousness "awakened"

Ma Xiaoxiao, a post-90s girl, left Dongxiang to live in Lanzhou when she was a child, and stayed in Lanzhou to work after graduation from university. By chance, Ma Xiao Xiao came back to his hometown and came into contact with the embroidery which had not been seen for a long time. He was moved by its beauty and beauty, so he came up with the idea of returning home to start a business.

In July 2018, Ma Xiaoxiao set up a local embroidery workshop in Dongxiang to hire local embroiderers, hoping to revive Dongxiang embroidery and inherit this intangible cultural heritage.

Embroidery is a folk handicraft handed down by Dongxiang women from generations to generations. They will embroider various patterns on clothes, bedding and parcels with bright colors and rich themes, which not only has decorative functions, but also contains the imagination and expectation of Dongxiang women for life.

The traditional description of Dongxiang women in the past is "the tailor on the Kang and the cook under the Kang". Trapped in the closed geographical environment and backward ideology, Dongxiang women are generally traditional closed, not only have low education level, but also lack of economic status and family status. Many Dongxiang women marry and give birth early, and then devote all their energy to taking care of their families. They have few opportunities to contact the outside world.

As a female, Ma Xiaoxiao can better understand the difficulties faced by this group. By increasing women's income through embroidery, Ma Xiaoxiao can awaken their sense of self-determination, which has become another driving force for her efforts to revive Dongxiang embroidery.

It's not easy to get the job started. Ma Xiaoxiao told the 21st century economic report that at first, many embroiderers ignored the requirements of orders and embroidered according to their own habits. As a result, the products they produced did not meet the requirements of customers. At the same time, xiuniang's skills and efficiency are uneven, which also increases the difficulty of management. Soon, Xiao Ma's credit card was overdrawn.

At a time when they were at a loss, the Dongxiang poverty alleviation working group of country garden sent a paper order, which solved the urgent need of Ma Xiao Xiao. When he visited other provinces to get rich, he was invited to visit other provinces to learn how to become rich.

Country garden's help to the embroidery industry is more than that. On the market side, since 2019, Bixiang, Bijia and other companies under Biguiyuan have undertaken Dongxiang embroidery orders for many times. Some of the staff even went deep into xiuniang's family to change their conservative consciousness and persuade them to work.

Nowadays, many mature Dongxiang embroidering women can receive orders from time to time, from reaching out to asking for money from home to making money on their own, which greatly improves their personal economic status and the economic difficulties faced by their families. Ma Xiaoxiao believes that with the guidance of the government and the help of "foreign aid", her original intention is gradually realized.

From consumption poverty alleviation to industrial chain construction

It is hard to imagine the difficulties of poverty alleviation in an area lacking of foundation and market awareness. For many helpers, they can only start from the foundation and build the industrial chain bit by bit.

This is the case with the promotion of Dongxiang sheep. Dongxiang is characterized by drought and less rain and less water content of forage, which makes Dongxiang mutton fine and fiber less. Although it is well-known in Gansu Province, Dongxiang sheep's recognition is not as good as that in Inner Mongolia and other places.

The support for Dongxiang sheep breeding was initially realized by solving the sales channels. For example, in the winter of 2018, country garden purchased Dongxiang sheep through Bixiang agricultural company, a social enterprise affiliated to Guoqiang public welfare foundation, at the price of "16 yuan per kilogram of live gross weight of a sheep, and an additional subsidy of 60 yuan for each sheep of poor households", which effectively solved the problem of poor farmers and poor people's poor sales channels.

In order to form industrialization and scale effect, Dongxiang County Animal Husbandry Development Center approved the establishment of Dongxiang County breeding industry association in 2019, and jointly with country garden, established "Dongxiang sheep breeding demonstration base of country garden industry poverty alleviation in Dongxiang". The base invited Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences for guidance, through improving the technical level of Dongxiang sheep breeding, standardizing the feeding and management of mutton sheep, realizing the standardized production of high-quality Dongxiang sheep, and improving the core competitiveness of the market.

What's more, the way of cooperation and co construction can also help to import advanced management experience and cultivate local rich leaders.

Considering the market's preference for green food, Dongxiang sheep quality traceability system has been established. At the same time, country garden also opened the chain of slaughtering, processing and transportation of Dongxiang sheep, so as to build a complete industrial chain.

As a result, Dongxiang sheep breeding has completed the process from consumption poverty alleviation to industrial chain construction.

By the end of October 2020, country garden has helped to sell about 30000 Dongxiang sheep, directly linked to about 6000 poor households, and achieved an increase of nearly 5000 yuan per capita.

The support for potato planting industry also follows the same path.

By connecting with the resources of Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, country garden introduced high-quality seed seeds and provided free seed and planting technical guidance for more than 5000 poor households in 14 towns and townships, including mechanized planting at the front end, disease prevention and field management in the planting stage, and mechanized harvesting in the later stage.

In the extension of the production chain, country garden purchased mature Dongxiang potatoes and cooperated with food production enterprises in the south to produce Dongxiang potato biscuits, cookies, chips, starch and other poverty alleviation products to improve the added value.

Education is the foundation of "supporting wisdom"

For many enterprises involved in industrial poverty alleviation, although there is a set of mature industrial methodology, the real difficulty is not here. "Poverty alleviation is dealing with people, and the transformation of people's ideas is the most difficult." Zhang Tao said.

Since 2014, Linxia Prefecture, where Dongxiang County is located, has taken the lead in realizing 15 years of free education from preschool education to ordinary high school in Gansu Province. However, many parents are still used to letting their children go out to work after completing junior high school education, or talk about marriage rather than further education. In this way, the logic of "knowledge changing fate" is difficult to become a reality.

"Education is the best way to cut off the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Although the effect is slower, the effect is very good." Zhang Tao said.

In 2018, country garden invested 17 million yuan to complete the construction of Longquan school in Dongxiang County in more than four months, greatly improving the local education environment.

In view of the reality of Dongxiang, country garden will invest more than 300 million yuan in 2020 to build a full-time secondary vocational school, Linxia Guoqiang vocational and technical school, which is purely charitable and free of charge. The school was the first to open six characteristic majors, including property management, car beauty and decoration, construction engineering construction, accounting, operation and management of high star hotels, and urban rail transit operation and management. It was opened in July this year and enrolled 560 students. Among them, many students with difficult family conditions have been given the opportunity of re education.

It is reported that more than 300 million yuan of country garden's 400 million yuan investment in Dongxiang poverty alleviation has been invested in the field of education.

But this is not the end. "Ten years of trees, a hundred years of people." It takes a long time for education to change the face of a family. It will still take time to fundamentally change the conservative attitudes of local people towards education.

As far as Dongxiang County is concerned, although it is about to get rid of poverty, it still has a long way to go to really establish industry, change ideas and complete the connection with rural revitalization. Many enterprises participating in poverty alleviation emphasize that the company has not given the end date of poverty alleviation work, and will continue to invest in Dongxiang in the future and strive to achieve long-term poverty alleviation results.