Leaders Share Wisdom On-site: Ruitai Sets Direction for Poverty Alleviation

During the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation, grassroots exploration requires guidance from the top. In November 2014, Liu Yongfu, Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, and Zhao Yong, Deputy Secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, made a special trip to Chengde Ruitai's predecessor - Xinglong County Ruitai Fruit and Vegetable Farming Professional Cooperative, to preside over an on-site meeting for targeted poverty alleviation. This investigation and guidance served both as a field inspection of the cooperative's previous poverty alleviation work and provided practical pathways for the hawthorn industry to aid in poverty elimination.

◄ Liu Yongfu, Director of the State Council Poverty Alleviation Office, and Deputy Secretary Zhao Yong holding an on-site targeted poverty alleviation meeting at our cooperative in November 2014

In the core hawthorn planting area of the cooperative, Director Liu Yongfu and Deputy Secretary Zhao Yong walked into the fields, carefully examining the hawthorn fruit conditions and engaging in face-to-face discussions with cooperative leaders and representative farmers involved in cultivation. "How many impoverished households have joined the cooperative? How much more money can one acre of hawthorn earn compared to before?" "Is technical guidance adequate? Are sales channels secured?" The leaders raised these questions that concerned the farmers. Upon learning that the cooperative had already incorporated over a hundred farming households, but some impoverished households still had concerns due to lack of cultivation experience and insufficient investment capacity, Director Liu Yongfu emphasized: "The key to industrial poverty alleviation is connecting 'small farmers' to the 'big market,' and cooperatives must effectively help farmers resolve their concerns about technology and sales channels." Deputy Secretary Zhao Yong added that they should leverage Xinglong's advantages as a hawthorn production base and implement poverty alleviation measures in specific cultivation and processing steps.

During the on-site meeting, the cooperative detailed their initial assistance approaches such as "contract farming" and "unified purchasing." Director Liu Yongfu approved the cooperative's commitment to a "minimum guaranteed purchase price" for fruits while proposing specific improvements: "You can explore a model of 'land shares + labour income,' allowing impoverished households to earn both rent and wages." Deputy Secretary Zhao Yong instructed relevant local departments to provide necessary support for the cooperative's technical training and infrastructure construction. After the meeting, the cooperative quickly reviewed the leaders' suggestions and optimized their assistance plans: addressing the technical shortcomings of impoverished households by forming a basic technical service team with the county's agricultural bureau to conduct regular rural training in pruning and fertilization; addressing investment challenges by introducing flexible policies like "seedling credit + repayment after income" to lower participation barriers.

The leaders' on-site guidance made the cooperative's poverty alleviation approach clearer. With policy coordination and departmental support, the cooperative secured special poverty alleviation funds to upgrade irrigation facilities and build small sorting sheds, solving the problem of hawthorn spoilage after harvest. Old Li, an impoverished farmer participating in cultivation, said: "Previously, when growing hawthorn independently, we couldn't get good prices and worried about sales; after joining the cooperative, we have technical guidance and guaranteed purchase prices, which gives us peace of mind." This visible change is a vivid manifestation of the on-site meeting's outcomes - the leaders' requirements transformed into specific measures benefiting every participating impoverished household.

This on-site meeting became a crucial turning point for the cooperative's development. Following the leaders' guidance to "strengthen the industrial foundation," the cooperative gradually expanded its scope from the initial hundred-plus households to eventually incorporating over 1,400 impoverished households, accumulating over 5 million yuan in increased income for farmers through share returns and dividends. From simple cultivation cooperation, it gradually extended to processing operations, transforming hawthorn from "fresh fruit" to "products," further enhancing the industry's added value.

Today, Chengde Ruitai, which has grown into a provincial-level poverty alleviation leading enterprise, continues to uphold the "practical poverty alleviation" concept advocated at the on-site meeting. The leaders' instructions in the hawthorn orchard that year have been transformed into the enterprise's operating principle of "developing together with farmers," making Xinglong hawthorn truly become a "wealth-generating fruit" that helps people achieve stable income growth.

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