Many villagers left for other cities to make a living. Things are different now. The stereotype for Chinese rural area has been broken. The rural reform at Tangyue Village, Pingba District, Anshun City, Guizhou Province make the villagers get rid of poverty and become rich. You Chenying, one of the villagers, has built her house and bought her car, and she said, “I have never thought I could live such a good life.” “Tangyue’s experience” was commended by the General Office of the State Council, becoming an example of Chinese rural reform.

How to live after the flood? Collective development

The poor-to-rich shift in Tangyue Village, an originally provincial second-class poor village, began with a flood in 2014, which destroyed the farmland and houses and caused devastation, making the life even worse.

“After the flood receded, villagers were worried about their future life. They knew they had to rebuild their homes, but how? Group development was the solution, so we took the road to collectivization.” After the flood retreated, Zuo Wenwen convened a meeting with more than 10 cadres in Tangyue Village and determined to establish a cooperative to manage collectively and develop as the group.

At that time, per capita disposable income of villagers was less than 4,000 yuan, and the income of the collective economy of the village was less than 40,000 yuan. “Our meeting has been held for 3 days. On the last day, we decided that all the 11 cadres, except one woman, asked the Rural Credit for loans to start the cooperative. The lowest loan we got was 80,000 yuan, and the highest was 150,000 yuan. We got 1,100,000 yuan in total for the establishment.” Zuo said.

Villagers who join the cooperative with land enjoy both the dividends and the and salary

The collective-owned Golden Cooperative was established, and villagers could transfer their land or join the cooperative with land shares to participate in the dividends at the end of the year. At the same time, they reformed the rural property rights system and confirmed the contractual land management rights, forest management rights, collective land ownership rights, collective construction land use rights, house ownership rights, small water conservancy project property rights and rural collective property rights, so as to promote the fair and orderly management of property rights. They counted the land resources of the whole village. Fields were calculated as 700 yuan per mu, land was 500 yuan per mu, sloping land was 300 yuan per mu, and 500 yuan was a share. Thus, all the households joined the cooperative with shares, and the proceeds were shared by cooperatives, village collectives and villagers by a 3:3:4 ratio.

Besides paying for transfers of land, they also purchased agricultural machines, seeds, and fertilizers. The transferred land is planted with lotus roots. Later, in the second half of 2015, they got their first income - 860,000 yuan. The revenue attracted more villagers. At the end of 2015, You Chengying transferred her land of 18 mu to the cooperative and joined them. In 2016, You got 5800-yuan transferred payment and dividends. In 2017, she got more than 11,510 yuan and her family’s annual income was over 100,000 yuan. “We are able to feed ourselves. I could not only get the dividends, but also take care of my families!”

Tangyue, the village in revitalization, will enjoy a promising future

Tangyue Village developed modern high-efficiency agriculture with mountainous characteristic and adjusted the agricultural structure by adopting the development mode of “village collective + cooperative + companies + farmers”. They planted 600 mu of celery, 700 mu of leeks, 150 mu of peppers, 200 mu of chives, 300 mu of shallow water lotus roots, 520 mu of late-ripening crisp red plums, 500 mu of walnuts and 160 mu of morel mushrooms, and the agricultural efficiency has been greatly improved.

At the end of 2019, the scale of the collective economy of the village was over 6.38 million yuan and the per capita disposable income of its villagers reached 20,140 yuan. “The achievement we have made is definitely gratifying, but we have to develop continuously. I believe that under the leadership of the party committees and governments at all levels, and relying on our hard work, Tangyue village will have a better future, and our people will become richer.” Zuo said firmly.

Nowadays, in Tangyue Village, there are rows of houses with red tiles and yellow walls, and vibrant green vegetable bases. Many facilities such as the cultural squares, boulevards, walkways, bicycle paths have been built up. It a beautiful village benefiting from the rural revitalization. “We will also quickly start the construction of the Rural Revitalization Institute, establish research bases, and build homestays, so as to make it a tourist destination for production, study, research and leisure.” Zuo said.