Yaochong Village is located in a remote mountain with inconvenient transportation. There are more than 590 households and 1,746 people. In the past 30 to 40 years, the main income of the villagers was to work in the coal mines around the village.

 

In the past decade, due to the closure of the surrounding coal mines, most villagers have lost their main source of income. Because of the serious land abandonment and the low economic added value of farmland production, villagers have to leave their hometown and go out to work.

 

In the second half of 2020, Li Wensheng returned to the village and was elected as the new party secretary and head of the village committee.

 

Due to years of business outside, the old house at home has collapsed. Li, who has nowhere to stay, can only bring a quilt and live alone in the building of the village office. During that period, Li has been thinking about how to better use the land. 

 

After learning of Li’s desire to use the land to develop agriculture for the benefit of the villagers, the assistance team from Jiahe County in Yaochong Village actively communicated with him and invited agricultural technology experts from the Jiahe County Agricultural and Rural Bureau to give instructions.

 

After professional determination of the local soil and in consideration of the microclimate conditions, the experts agreed that planting wax gourds was the best choice.

 

With the experts' technical guidance and soil condition report, Li decided to take wax gourds planting as a major industry to develop the collective economy and benefit the villagers.

 

 

In March last year, Li led the villagers to reclaim 160 mu (about 10.7 hectares) of land that had been abandoned and plant wax gourds. In October, a company from Shanghai bought all the wax gourds yielded. Later, Li made a calculation and found that the net income reached nearly 20,000 yuan after all the costs.

 

In March this year, Li, with the consent of the villagers, in addition to the original 160 mu of farmland, 400 mu of barren hills were also reclaimed for winter melon planting. He also hired an agricultural technician from Guangdong Province to instruct people in planting winter melons from the cultivation of seedlings to harvesting.

 

The village is also seeing a bumper harvest of wax gourds. Li calculated that based on last year’s yield of 10,000 kilograms, over 500 mu (about 33.3 hectares) of land is expected to produce over 5,000 tons of wax gourds, which can provide more than 100 jobs for local villagers and increase their income by more than 2 million yuan.

 

After all the costs of seeds, fertilizers, manpower and other expenses, it is expected to increase the income of the village collective by more than 300,000 yuan.

 

In addition, Li also plans to transfer more than 1,000 mu (about 66.7 hectares) of land and develop the wasted woodland to plant navel oranges, red pomelo and other fruits. It can provide jobs for more than one hundred people and increase their income by more than 2 million yuan per year. It is expected to increase the income of the village collective economy by 600,000 yuan per year from 2027.