From collectives to farming companies

By Liu Ce | China Daily | Updated: 2008-09-20 07:01

Agriculture remains the backbone economy in Chaoyang, an ancient city in western Liaoning, where the rural population comprises two-thirds of the total.

The success story of Chaoyang farmers rising from poverty and living a comparatively comfortable life starts three decades ago when they changed their way of life.

At the end of 1979, a commune in Chaoyang county stopped large collective production and assigned each family a plot of land for self-operation with a contract of farming. In two years the new approach spread across the region, energetically embraced by farmers.

By 1983, agricultural output value rose 38 percent from 1978. The net income of farmers that year rose to 244 yuan, 3.8 times that of 1978.

By 1984, the communes that ruled the countryside for two decades were replaced by towns and townships and city of Chaoyang entered a new era.

The second stage of rural reform began in earnest in 1985. Local farmers were encouraged to grow fruit and vegetables and engage more in animal husbandry. The diversified economy was rewarded with an increase in production. The rural output value of Chaoyang by 1990 nearly doubled that in 1985.

The highlight of the period is the emergence of township enterprises. In the following years, various factories and businesses arose from the fields. By the end of 1989, their number reached 58,070, employing 253,867 people.

The next decade was their golden age. By 1995, the city had about 75,000 township enterprises. Their total revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan, which was more than five fold that in 1989.

To speed up industrial growth among the countryside, the government promoted a mode of "company plus farmer household" to pool farmers into processing of their farm produce. Soon there emerged a group of larger-scale enterprises engaged in deep-processing of farm produce and a group of specialized wholesale markets.

Starting from 2000, the city carried out national policies to reduce farmers' burden and introduced tax reforms. Among the first cut were fees the government used to collect on overall coordination and education.

By 2006, the city became the first in Liaoning province to exempt farmers from agricultural tax and introduce minimum living standard and cooperative medical treatment for farmers.

Last year, the agricultural output value of Chaoyang topped 16.6 billion yuan which was more than five times that in 1977. While farmers generally have a better life, more than 500,000 of them fully emerged from poverty.