Road to Prosperity

Connectivity brings industry to remote Guangxi village, raising incomes and living standards

- Li Kaizhi & Liu Ting

Located in Yizhou District, Hechi City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China, Zhadong was a pov-erty-stricken mountain village. The main source of villagers’ income was the cultivation of crops such as corn. In the past, the income was extremely low, and the harvest was not guaranteed.

In recent years, the village has taken various measures to change the situation, including developing cultivation and breeding industries of passion fruit, silkworm and cattle, and actively implementing the policies on relocation of people living in impoverished regions that lack suitable conditions for development. As a result, Zhadong has gradually found a distinctive way to help poor households increase income and shake offpoverty. The village is expected to be removed from the poverty list by the end of this year.

How was the poverty alleviation work done there? How did the villagers increase their income and shake offpoverty? The following are stories of the villagers who have experienced a transformation of their lives.

Growing scale

One air conditioner, 2-story house, 3-door refrigerator, 46-inch LCD TV … Walking into Qin Yongfu’s home, it is hard to imagine that this is a family that stepped out of poverty just four years ago. As the largest silkworm breeder in the village, he has been planting mulberry leaves and breeding silkworms for 17 years.