10 industries boost Hechi's poverty alleviation efforts

Hechi is the city with the largest impoverished population, the widest area stricken by poverty, and the deepest degree of poverty in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

In recent years, the city has been boosting the development of 10 industries as part of its poverty alleviation efforts, namely walnuts, fruit, tea-oil trees, sugar canes, mulberry, Chinese chestnuts, beef cattle and mutton sheep, pigs, freshwater aquaculture, as well as green and selenium rich agricultural products, achieving positive results.

To date, the plantation area of walnuts in the city has reached 2.6 million mu (173,333 hectares), which is the largest walnut planting base in South China. Hechi has also been designated as a pilot city for establishing a national-level production base for forestry eco-products, such as walnuts.

The city cultivated a total of 900,000 mu of mulberries by 2019, while the number of beef cattle and mutton sheep raised ranked first in Guangxi. The cultivation area of tea-oil trees in Hechi was 1.26 million mu, making the city a national demonstration city for woody oil plants.

There are currently 900,000 mu of sugar canes planted in Hechi, while 92,000 mu in green and selenium rich agricultural products. The breeding area of freshwater fish exceeds 900,000 mu.

The development of the 10 poverty alleviation industries has provided people in the city with stable and sustainable sources of income.

In 2018, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in Hechi was 9,177 yuan ($1,313), a year-on-year increase of 11.1 percent.

From 2016 to 2018, there were 486,800 people, 378 villages, and three counties or county-level districts in Hechi that were lifted out of poverty, with the poverty incidence dropping from 20.16 percent to 8.22 percent.

Hechi will further advance the development of the 10 industries to win the battle against poverty and comprehensively promote rural revitalization, said He Xinxing, Party secretary of the city.

It is estimated that the 10 poverty alleviation industries can increase farmers' annual per capita income by more than 5,000 yuan by 2020.