Meanwhile, many other counties and villages in Guizhou are also reporting successes in their rural vitalization efforts, and the initiative of industrial restructuring in rural areas has been sweeping across the province.
"We need to have a profound industrial revolution to boost the rural economy," said Sun Zhigang, secretary of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee, on the sidelines of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress. "This not only concerns a population of 2.8 million living in poverty, but influences Guizhou's essential target of helping 20 million farmers live a well-off life."
In Niaowang village, such a revolution has been changing people's lives.
The village is located in the Yunwu mountainous area in Guiding county, and it lies at an altitude of 1,200-1,500 meters. Once one of the poorest areas in Guizhou province, it is now famous for its Yunwu Tea.
"Living on high mountains, we have acid soil rich in humus and minerals," Lei Jiacai, a tea grower in Niaowang village, said. "There is abundant rainfall here, and the temperature varies widely from day to night. Such a climate is especially suitable for tea plant growth, and the tea here features fresh smells and rich flavor."
The village has a history of several hundred years in planting tea. However, the wild tea, once a tribute to the emperors of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), had quite a low yield. Households in the mountain produced very little and just traded it for salt. Most of the local farmlands were used to cultivating rice and corn at a lower output, according to Lei.
As the country called for a market economy with the policy of reform and opening up in the 1980s, people living outside the mountains rushed here to buy wild tea. Some villagers who left home for a living elsewhere also returned. They dug for tea seedlings on the mountains, and transplanted them around their own farmlands or houses. Some of the tea was left for the family to enjoy, while some was sold to tea-buyers.
Witnessing more economic benefits than what rice or corn could bring, the local government began to support the tea industry since 1997. At the beginning, only several households chose to plant tea in the farmlands. Over the next 20 years, almost every household in the village switched to growing tea.
By the end of 2017, the tea growing area has reached more than 12,000 mu in Niaowang village, with 19 mu per household and 4 mu per person in average. The village has set up 57 production lines for mechanized tea processing, creating an annual output value of more than 30 million yuan. The per capita disposable income here has surpassed 10,000 yuan.
"Good tea grows on high mountains," said Lei, who owns 40 mu of tea farm. "Nature gives Niaowang village a unique geographical environment, helping villagers become richer."
Besides growing tea, Lei is also engaged in the processing, wholesale and retail of tea leaves at home. "Tea has become a ready source of money for me, and I don't worry about the livelihood anymore."
From starting small family tea gardens to cultivating tea enterprises, businesses and cooperatives, Niaowang village has succeeded in adjusting its rural industrial structure, hence turning its resource advantage into economic gain. Its increasingly developing tea industry has helped local villagers to live a well-off life, thanks to local processing enterprises and cooperatives.
Not just in Niaowang village, the past 10 years have witnessed a rapid development of farmers' cooperatives all over the country. Such cooperatives offer services including purchasing the means of agricultural production, marketing, processing, transporting and storing farm products, and providing technologies and information related to agricultural production and operation. Through these services, farmers engaged in the same kind of agricultural production are able to pool resources and increase productivity.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, around 2 million farmers' cooperatives were registered in China as of November 2017, 76 times the number a decade ago.
Currently, over 100 million rural households have joined various cooperatives, accounting for 46.8 percent of the country's total.
Tea plucking. [Photo/VCG]
Niaowang village is famous for its high quality tea. [Photo/VCG]
Tea withering. [Photo/VCG]