Cultivating Prosperity Infused With Dedication

The saplings donated by farmers in Anji, Zhejiang province, bring hope to ethnic groups living in impoverished Pu'an county, Guizhou province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

An elegant tea bag caught people's attention as Xu Ping, a deputy from Qingchuan county, Sichuan province, shared a story of how this small item made such a great difference to her hometown with other participants at the third session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing in May.

The bag, in white cloth with an embroidered pattern of two green tea leaves, contained Baiye Yihao, or White Leaf No 1, a white tea. Saplings were donated by farmers in Anji county in Huzhou of Zhejiang province to Qingchuan.

"When drinking the water of a well, one should never forget those who dug it. After becoming rich, we have never forgotten the kindness and love of the Party," the farmers wrote in the letter.

Later that year, a total of 34 villages in Hunan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces were designated to receive the donated tea saplings.

Qingchuan received a total of 5.4 million tea saplings from Anji, and in March this year, the first batch of Baiye Yihao tea was picked.

It is expected that these donated saplings will help 633 households of farmers in Qingchuan to be lifted out of poverty by 2022, Xu says.

In Southwest China's Guizhou province, the donated tea saplings have also played a vital role in helping the poverty-stricken population to shrug off their impoverishment.

Zhang Yong, the head of Zhiqiang village, was particularly excited when the saplings arrived at Zhongzhai township, Yanhe Tujia autonomous county of Tongren in Guizhou, on Oct 20, 2018.

Just two hours after their arrival, Zhang, along with a representative from Anji, planted the first one at 6 am in the drizzle.

"Tea is a product that can generate revenue in the long term. If developed well, it will substantially increase the villagers' income," Zhang says.

This is not the first time that Zhang started growing tea in the village, but due to the lack of funding, the previous attempts did not yield satisfactory results.

"Because the natural environment of our village is suitable for growing tea, the village has a long tradition of making tea and we still have a few tea trees left."

In 2017, a dozen farmers from the village established a professional cooperative for tea planting, with each person investing 5,000 yuan ($715).

"Because we didn't have the knowledge and technology, we simply processed our tea leaves and sold them to surrounding villages. It wasn't really a proper business. Only when our village was selected as the location for growing Anji white tea, did we adopt a systematic approach to developing our tea industry," Zhang says.

In August 2018, Zhang and some other officials from Yanhe went on a one-week field trip to investigate the local white tea industry in Anji.

When he came back, the village started cultivating the barren mountains for farming. Zhang says because of the villagers' enthusiasm, they cultivated 33 hectares of land in a month.

For the first batch, Huangdu village in Anji donated 3.6 million saplings. And just 20 days after the saplings arrived, the three villages of Zhiqiang, Dazhai and Sanhuixi in Yanhe finished planting them.

These saplings covered 80 hectares of land in the three villages. More than 1,500 people from 381 impoverished households participated in the plantations' maintenance, including weeding, plowing and fertilizing, getting paid over 2.5 million yuan in total.

A tea planter in Anji, Zhejiang province, checks the saplings which will be donated to Guizhou province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Tian Hongjun is one of the first farmers engaged in the tea planting in Dazhai village. Together with three other fellow villagers, he launched a cooperative, contracting and planting the tea saplings in Dazhai in 2018.

Tian used to work in a brick factory in Jiangxi province, 700 kilometers from his hometown.

"It was hard. My wife stayed at home to take care of our children and our 2.7 hectares of land went to waste without farming," the 38-year-old recalls.

"Now farmers in the village, aside from looking after their own farmlands, can work at the tea-planting cooperative with a daily income of 80 yuan," Tian says proudly.

Zhang, of Zhiqiang village, emphasizes the success was also due to the comprehensive support offered by institutes and companies from Zhejiang province. When they encountered difficulties in growing tea, experts from the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences provided them with technical support.

Because white tea requires a complicated manufacturing process, Yuanfeng Tea Machinery company from Anji donated 31 sets of white tea processing machinery to the tea cooperative in Zhiqiang village.

The sales are covered by Zhejiang Tea Group, which established a company in Yanhe county especially to help build an integrated supply chain.

Fu Gang, Party chief of Dazhai village, says that their villagers only used to growtea on a small scale and had little experience in running tea plantations, so, in the beginning, the villagers were concerned whether the plantation would actually turn a profit.

"Thankfully, apart from donating tea saplings to us, Huangdu village also offers us support in growing and management, and Zhejiang Tea Group helps us sell the tea. Our concerns are all resolved," Fu says.

Since 2019, Zhongzhai township has been expanding its tea planting area, adding more than 330 hectares of newly built plantations in seven other villages, bringing an income of 3.5 million yuan to 3,016 households, 13,172 people in total, including 1,235 impoverished households. The town aims to plant another 110 hectares of tea this year.

According to the local government report, white tea production has become the major industry of the town, not only enabling the residents to seek local job opportunities, but also attracting people there for work or to trade.

The town has been developing eco-friendly agriculture, including livestock breeding, ensuring that all residents struggling with poverty can make a living by participating in these causes.

Fu says that in 2018, Dazhai village registered 139 impoverished households, 686 people altogether, and by the end of 2019, 114 households and 586 people have been taken off the list.

The remaining 25 impoverished households followed soon after.

Meng Pinghong says such measures are regarded as a vital element in China's poverty alleviation efforts, as through developing local industries, such as tea-plantation, more of the poverty-stricken population will ensure a stable and increasing income, with their jobs being secured locally.

Yang Jun in Guiyang contributed to the story.