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E-mail China.org.cn, July 7, 2024
Beijing Youth Daily:
In 2020, Yunnan announced that all rural poor people in the province had been lifted out of poverty under the current standard. Four years have passed since then. What are their lives like now? Have their pockets become fuller? Additionally, how do you plan to consolidate the poverty alleviation achievements and promote comprehensive rural revitalization to further improve people's lives? Thank you.
Wang Yubo:
Thank you for your questions; I will answer them. The fight against poverty is not the end, but the starting point of a new life and new endeavors. In recent years, we have made prevention of a large-scale return to poverty our bottom-line task. We have established a unified provincial government assistance platform for monitoring and helping those at risk of falling back into poverty, and provided targeted assistance to households with unstable incomes, prone to poverty or facing sudden severe difficulties. We have implemented two three-year actions to sustain income growth for rural residents and those lifted out of poverty, to ensure that their incomes continue to grow rapidly. In 2023, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in the province increased by 8%, and the per capita net income of those previously lifted out of poverty increased by 14.8%.
Increasing people's happiness and reducing their worries, and boosting their financial freedom and relieving financial stress, are the most important aspects of our work. Based on preventing a large-scale return to poverty, we are focused on three areas:
First, we are striving to make the people’s pockets fuller. We have already gained considerable experience in this area. For example, Caoba town in the city of Mengzi has implemented the "622" model in the development of the blueberry industry, where 60% of sales revenue is distributed to farmers, 20% to village collectives and 20% to enterprises. In 2023, the average household income reached 100,000 yuan. Yongren county created the "Happy Lane" industrial worker community, providing 243,000 labor opportunities to local enterprises over two years, allowing residents to earn money while taking care of their families. Zhenxiong county has seen more than 35,000 people return to start businesses or find employment in the past two years. We will continue to develop county-level industries that benefit the people and enhance the quality of employment transfers for farmers, ensuring their pockets become fuller.
Second, we are striving to make the people's homes more livable. In recent years, we have worked with a team of experts from China Agricultural University to develop a number of rural revitalization demonstration villages, such as Hebian village and Yunzhong Miao village. Improvements to the rural environment have significantly promoted the development of rural industries, cultural prosperity and social governance. We will learn from and apply the experience of the "Green Rural Revival Program," using rural living environment improvements as a guide to effectively discover, protect, develop and enhance rural value, preserving rural charm and promoting cleanliness, beauty and civility in rural areas.
Third, we are striving to make the people's lives more comfortable. Each year, over 15 million people from Yunnan leave the province for work, and the issue of elderly and child care has always been a concern. We have encouraged officials to act as "honorary principals" and "honorary directors," dispatching key teachers from high-quality local middle schools and medical staff from provincial hospitals to improve every school and hospital close to the people. We are building and operating canteens for the elderly and child-friendly spaces in rural and community settings to meet the dining needs of the elderly and provide companionship, knowledge and happiness for left-behind children. We will continue to address the concerns and expectations of the people in areas such as living conditions, employment, education and healthcare, ensuring they enjoy a better life in all respects.
Just now, I addressed the development of our province's characteristic industries. The income growth of rural residents is closely related to agricultural industry development. Mr. Wang Xiangang will now elaborate on how to continue strengthening and improving plateau characteristic agriculture.
Vigorously developing plateau-featured agriculture is General Secretary Xi Jinping's earnest advice to Yunnan's "three rural issues," namely, agriculture, rural areas and rural people. In fact, Yunnan encompasses almost every type of climate in China from the southernmost to the northernmost and from the easternmost to the westernmost, including tropical, subtropical, temperate and cold zones. The highest altitude is 6,740 meters and the lowest altitude is 76 meters. Yunnan has unique conditions for developing agriculture. Whatever you plant will grow, and whatever grows will be in good quality. For example, as we all know, Yunnan's flowers are world-renowned and Yunnan is the world's largest fresh cut flower production area. Last year, our fresh cut flower production reached 19 billion, which is equivalent to an average of 3 flowers for each person in the world. Kunming Dounan Flower Market has become a benchmark for flower trading in Asia and even the world. For another example, Yunnan's tea leaves are fragrant and have a profound history. Yunnan is the core origin of tea trees in the world. There are still a large number of ancient tea trees that are thousands of years old on the banks of the Lancang River. According to the verification and confirmation by relevant national departments, Yunnan's tea leaf area, output, and green organic tea gardens ranked first nationally in 2023. The cultural landscape of the old tea forests of Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er, has been included in the World Heritage Site. Besides, Yunnan's coffee is fragrant, with an area and output accounting for over 98% of the country. Yunnan is known as one of the most suitable areas for coffee cultivation in the world. Therefore, the quality of Yunnan coffee is also recognized by the world. In addition, Yunnan's fruits have long been famous at home and abroad, and it is also the province with the richest variety of fruits in China. Among them, the output of avocados and summer strawberries accounts for more than 80% of the country. Many friends want to go to Yunnan to eat various kinds of fruits. What's more, Yunnan's traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is of high quality. Yunnan boasts more than 145 kinds of TCM plants, accounting for over 50% of the nation's total. Panax notoginseng, paris polyphylla, and gastrodia elata are well-received nationwide. Many kinds of TCM serve as both food and medicine, and a consensus has been reached that seldom TCM prescriptions are without Yunnan TCM.
Distinctive, green and high-quality are the defining characteristics of Yunnan's agriculture. Following General Secretary Xi Jinping's directives, we will adopt "greater agriculture" and "greater food" approaches, accelerating the construction of a strong province in distinctive agriculture. In enhancing ecological agriculture, we will speed up the green transformation of planting and breeding methods, establish a comprehensive green development standard system for the entire agricultural industry chain, and resolutely avoid the excessive use of water, fertilizer and pesticides, ensuring that our good mountains and good waters produce good products. In boosting agriculture facilities, we will focus on key areas such as modern facility planting and breeding, and address the shortcomings in processing, cold chain, preservation and logistics, comprehensively improving resource utilization and input-output efficiency. In strengthening agriculture efficiency, we will make efforts in good farmland, good seeds, good practices, good systems and good machinery, facilitating agricultural modernization with technologies. In expanding shared agriculture, we will improve mechanisms that link and benefit farmers with rural industries, integrate small farmers into large industries, develop large industries and expand large markets, ensuring that more added value from industries benefits rural areas and farmers. Thus, allowing more people to enjoy the fruits of development.
Yunnan has entered its rainy season in recent days. The season is incredibly good for the province as a large variety of wild mushrooms are gradually coming on the market. Within the industry, there's a saying: "Mushrooms elsewhere are vegetables, but mushrooms in Yunnan are delicacies." We invite everyone to join a mushroom feast and come to Yunnan to taste these fresh and delicious seasonal treats.
Thank you.
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