Pingyao village fights to raise living standards

Updated: 2018-01-29
By Yang Yang ( chinadaily.com.cn)

Around 50 kilometers from downtown Pingyao county, Shikulue village has recently been making special efforts to rid itself of poverty by developing industries and encouraging locals to be shareholders.

At a share dividend and labor-fee cashing conference in the village, 30 households received dividends and labor fees totaling more than 200,000 yuan ($31,611) for 2017.

Wen Zhaowang, 73, received 7,000 yuan as he converted his 0.5-hectare farmland into shares and became a shareholder in a local cooperative.

"I'm too old to work on the land. Owing to the new policy and cooperative, I can earn money through my shareholding," said Wen.

Many other villagers have also benefited from industrial development and shareholding in Shikulue village, a place that has experienced large-scale emigration.

At the end of 2016, a working group on poverty alleviation, led by Pingyao Broadcasting Station, came to the rocky and barren area and started developing a traditional Chinese medicine industry based on the ideal local climate and geographical environment.

Hengerkang Planting Cooperative, a joint-stock professional cooperative with Pingyao Huitong Computer Information Network Development Co as controlling shareholder, and local villagers as shareholders, was then established to solve problems in developing rural agriculture.

Since its establishment, the cooperative has pooled more than 15 hectares of farmland as shares, planted 6.67 hectares of traditional Chinese medicine such as Codonopsis pilosula and Bupleuri radix, and interplanted selenium-rich grain on more than 9 hectares of land –– generating 600,000 yuan in revenue.

Meanwhile, local households living below the poverty line can receive dividends on land shares and payments for labor provided to the cooperative.

Infrastructure such as a comprehensive service center, day care centers and village clinics were also built and put into operation. As a result, living standards in the village had risen significantly by the end of 2017.

To continue improving living standards, Shikulue village aims to develop its tourism industry and has signed a contract with the Institute of Shanxi Architecture Design and Research to develop tourism into another pillar industry for the village following the TCM industry, according to Wang Ge, director of Pingyao Broadcasting Station office.