Strand of hope

Cable across canyon promises to bring new prosperity to orange farmers

For Hu Xueping and his fellow villagers, the road to prosperity had been blocked for years by a canyon 300 meters wide. Now, after a cable was strung across the void to connect the small community with the outside world, the villagers have renewed hope for a better life.

Hu, 63, is a resident of Qinghaoyu village in Zigui, Hubei province. The eight households there make their living by growing navel oranges.

In the past, the villagers had to carry their produce on their backs, walking a precipitous 1-kilometer road to sell them. The road is so treacherous that many villagers have been injured.

The cost for hiring someone to transport the oranges is 300 yuan ($57.70; 41.35 euros; 35.26) a day. That's a big chunk of the 400 yuan in revenue for 400 kilograms of naval oranges, let alone the difficulty of finding people to do the job. Last year, the snowy and icy weather damaged more than 2,500 kg of oranges before they could be carried to market.

Mules are also costly. And a plan to build a road was denied because some villagers were reluctant to see their land taken away.

That's why, in 2014, Hu Xueping decided to string a cable himself. His younger brother Hu Xueman, who had lost both arms, joined him.

They leveled a field, built an operation room and carried cables to the other side of the canyon - the most difficult part of the project.

After the cable was strung, they found it would not operate normally due to low electrical voltage. Fortunately, a local power company, upon learning about the situation, provided a transformer and strung 2 kilometers of power transmission line to the village.

On Dec 6, after more than two years of work, the little tram carried its first basket of navel oranges out of the village. The cable takes a quarter of the time it takes to walk, at less than one-tenth the cost.

With the price of navel oranges rising this year, villagers have hope for brighter prospects. Yi Renzi, a villager who once worked in cities, like many rural youths, said he would stay at home and take care of the orange trees instead.

For China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 12/30/2016 page22)