Sweet potato effective tool for poverty alleviation in Dahua

Sweet potatoes have been an effective tool in recent years for people in Bansheng township in Dahua Yao autonomous county, Hechi in their poverty alleviation efforts.

Bansheng has harsh natural conditions, and more than 90 percent of the town is located in a mountainous area, with an average of 18.5 peaks per square kilometer.

An official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that visited Bansheng described it as "the worst place for humans to live, apart from deserts."

In 2016, Dahua decided to plant sweet potatoes, which are easy to grow in mountainous areas, requiring only some farmyard manure.

For those impoverished households who could not afford the seedlings, Dahua provided them free of charge. In 2019, more than 110,000 jin (half a kilogram) of sweet potato seedlings were provided for Bansheng township.

The plantation area of sweet potatoes in Bansheng rose from over 300 mu (20 hectares) in 2016 to 1,785 mu in 2019. The yield of sweet potatoes grew from 150,000 kg in 2016 to over 1.2 million kg in 2019.

There were 1,065 impoverished people from 183 households in Bansheng who were lifted out of poverty by planting sweet potatoes in 2019.

In addition, several featured foods were also developed from sweet potatoes, such as sweet potato vermicelli, further extending the industrial chain and broadening the sales channels of sweet potatoes.

In 2019, a sweet potato vermicelli factory was established in Bansheng.

Since August 2019, the factory has purchased over 400,000 jin of sweet potatoes from Bansheng township and produced more than 40,000 jin of sweet potato vermicelli, of which over 30,000 jin were sold to Nanning and Fangchenggang, generating total sales of more than 800,000 yuan ($116,512).

A farmer harvests sweet potatoes in Bansheng township in Dahua Yao autonomous county, Hechi. [Photo by Wei Zhe and Lan Kai/gxnews.com.cn]