Kelan County, Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province, is located in a concentrated contiguous area of Lvliang Mountain. When the file was established in 2014, the county had 116 poor villages with 20,271 poor people, and the poverty incidence rate was 31.8%. By the end of 2018, all 116 poor villages in the county had withdrawn, and the "poverty hat" was successfully removed. The secret of poverty alleviation is the wild sea buckthorn all over the hills.
Kelan County is located in the Loess Plateau of northwest Shanxi, with high mountains and deep valleys, barren land, and lack of resources. It is an ecologically fragile area. In recent years, in order to give full play to its resource advantages, Kelan County has actively explored, innovated ideas, implemented various seabuckthorn industrial projects, adopted an industrial development model in which enterprises drive production bases and bases link farmers to achieve a major transformation from resource advantages to economic advantages. Turning "wild fruit" into "golden fruit" has given the local people a new "backer" for getting rich.
At 6 o'clock in the morning, Wang Pengcheng, a villager in Songjiagou Village, rode a motorcycle, brought pp woven bags, and dried food, ready to go up the mountain to pick seabuckthorn leaves. "Leaves are picked in summer and fruits are picked in autumn. Seabuckthorn, which used to be unregulated, can now become sweet and pastry." Wang Peng said while holding his hands.
The reporter of "Charity Daily" learned that in recent years, Kelan County has vigorously implemented the "five batch" projects of returning farmland to forests, ecological management, ecological management and protection, seabuckthorn transformation, and forestry industry development. The county's forest coverage rate reached 26.03. %. The good ecological environment has also attracted many industrial investors. Zhang Yanfeng, chairman of Songjiagou Functional Food Co., Ltd., said that the company decided to choose Songjiagou because of its beautiful environment, simple folk customs and more than 40,000 acres of wild seabuckthorn forests in Songjiagou Village.
“Kelan’s environmental resources are particularly good and beautiful. The mountains and plains are full of wild sea buckthorn, so the common people basically have no planting costs, and they are all harvesting costs. In 2019, we purchased sea buckthorn fruits at a price of 6,500 yuan a ton, using 2 yuan a catty. The nearby folks are very happy to purchase the wet leaves of seabuckthorn at a price of 100%. Our harvest of seabuckthorn leaves this year should be between 500 tons and 600 tons, which will directly increase the income of the people by 6 million yuan."
According to Zhang Yanfeng, this year, Songjiagou Functional Food Co., Ltd. can process 5,000 tons of fresh seabuckthorn fruits and 4,000 tons of fresh seabuckthorn leaves. The seabuckthorn medicated tea developed and produced has also been successfully selected as a regional public brand in the "Shanxi medicated tea" series. The good benefits made Songjiagou and the surrounding villagers "smeared".
The reporter learned that in order to create a healthy industrial chain, at present, Kelan County has adopted ecological poverty alleviation measures such as characteristic forest industry, cooperative labor services, and building a seabuckthorn industrial chain to form a "planting seabuckthorn, improving ecology, developing production, and increasing farmers' income". The recycling industry model has helped one-third of the county’s poor people to work and earn money. Nowadays, seabuckthorn is the leading industry in the forestry industry system of Kelan County. The artificial and wild seabuckthorn forests exceed 490,000 mu, which also attracts many migrant laborers to return to their hometowns for employment and promote local economic development.
Li Laibing, a 60-year-old impoverished household, lives by farming. The father and son participated in the professional cooperative for poverty alleviation and afforestation. In one spring, the three earned 28,200 yuan in labor fees; poor householder Hao Yongjun and his wife are members of the inclusive poverty alleviation and afforestation cooperative, 2019 The two earned 34,000 yuan. He said, "You can make money without going out, and you can take care of your home, and you don't have to go outside to suffer."
It is also understood that in order to carry out industrial poverty alleviation, at present, Kelan County has added 2 planned planting parks and 24 planting bases this year. During the period, 1.498 million yuan of subsidies from all parties were obtained. Among them, 653 households with 1,663 people have subsidized funds of 722,000 yuan; 912 households of non-poverty households have 2,174 people, with subsidized funds of 776,000 yuan. The little "wild fruit" has become the "golden fruit" for the people to get rid of poverty and become rich.
