November 1, 2012 Source: People's Daily Online – Guangxi Channel
Nanning, November 1 (People's Daily Online) –After becoming the organization to provide one-to-one assistance to Minzu Village, Linfeng Town, Tiandong County, Industrial Bank (IB) Nanning Branch has always considering how to carry out the poverty alleviation and development across the entire village, how to bring into full play the limited poverty-alleviating resources, and how to form a featured industrial development pattern, so as to help the village to realize their own sustainable development. The branch adopted the following approach: through building infrastructure to serve industrial development, it formed the industrial development pattern of a centralized livestock and poultry breeding zone to inspire the inborn power of farmers for their own development, creating a solid basis for a new round of poverty alleviation campaign.
Building infrastructure to serve industrial development
Covering a large area, Minzu Village consists of 16 natural hamlets, which are located in a dispersed manner. The roads connecting these hamlets are made of mud. Every time it rains, the roads would become muddy.It greatly impaired the industrial development of the whole village. “In order to be prosperous, you need to build road first”. Nonetheless, under the existing circumstance, it would be very difficult to solve the problem once for all. For this reason, the poverty alleviation team led by Shen Weiqun, Secretary of Party Committee and President of IB Nanning Branch made an in-depth investigation in the village. Based on scientific analysis, President Shen proposed the basis principle for poverty alleviation–“we will lend vigorous support to any infrastructure construction that is beneficial for the industrial development of Minzu Village. In these natural hamlets where it is possible to develop the livestock and poultry industry, the construction of hardened road must be in combination with the development of livestock and poultry industry. The best resources should be used in the most important areas”.
Hence, IB Nanning Branch poverty alleviation team decided to choose Liutuo Hamlet and Liutang Hamlet as the pilot sites first. By focusing on both the construction of infrastructure and industry, the branch exerted vigorous support for the linked development of centralized chicken breeding areas. The funds for investment consist of subsidies provided by the government, donations made by the public and money raised by villagers themselves. Based on a case by case method, an amount of RMB 160,000 was raised as the funds for constructing the hardened cement road for Liutang Hamlet, and RMB 40,000 for constructing the sand-stone road for Liutuo Hamlet. Up to now, the sand-stone road for Liutuo Hamlet has been completed, and the hardened cement road for Liutang Hamlet has started its construction, thus building a foundation for the centralized breeding in the form of “company + farmers”.
Guiding farmers to realize their own development and inspire their inborn power
For a long period, poverty-stricken villages have held the idea of waiting for and relying on assistance to some extent. This has seriously restricted the industrial development of Minzu Village. By now, the village has not established a distinctive industry, which greatly impairing the growth of farmers' incomes. In order to change the old notion of “waiting for poverty alleviation” held by the poverty-stricken farmers in the village and build a new concept of “anticipating poverty alleviation”, the poverty alleviation team of IB Nanning Branch went into the village, explaining policies and describing development and poverty alleviation to the villagers. They made the villagers understand that, to throw off poverty, they should establish the concept of “self-reliance and self-improvement” and only in this way they can realize their own development and really shake off poverty. With patient and detailed explanation, some poverty-stricken farmers invested their own money to develop business on their own initiative. For instance, six poverty-stricken farmers from Liutuo Hamlet invested RMB 5,000 each (RMB 30,000 in total) to build chicken coops and established a centralized chicken breeding area. In the meantime, in order to solve the problems of water, electricity and road for the centralized breeding areas, the poverty alleviation team made active contacts with the Animal Husbandry Bureau of Tiandong County, raising RMB 120,000 to set up water supply and power supply lines and build roads. Up to now, the village has built a centralized breeding area with eight chicken coops, capable of producing 144,000 chickens a year.
Due to the lack of funds, farmers could not pay the deposit for baby chicks to the relevant companies after building the chicken coops. For this reason, the poverty alleviation team of IB Nanning Branch made active contacts with local banks and provided guarantee for these farmers to borrow funds from those banks. All application procedures have been completed by now. Some farmers have received the funds smoothly and bought baby chicks for breeding.
The establishment of the demonstration site of Liutuo Hamlet Centralized Breeding Area is an useful exploration of the poverty alleviation team of IB Nanning Branch in poverty alleviation. Next, the team will gradually establish other centralized breeding areas for ground beetles and pigs, etc. in relevant natural hamlets, so as to push the poverty alleviation and development of the entire village to a new stage.