Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

HALL 6, the consumption hall of this year’s China Charity Fair, presented a total of 917 different types of agricultural products from poverty-stricken regions.

These products included organic apples from Southwest China’s Guizhou Province, beef products from Xining, capital of Northwest China’s Qinghai Province, rice from northeastern China and foods made with highland barley grown in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

One of the three driving forces of an economy, consumption has been treated as a key to poverty relief. The State Council released a notice this January urging units, including government departments, State-owned enterprises and public institutions, to purchase products from poverty-stricken regions.

“This is green tea from my hometown of Guzhang County in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hunan Province,” Qu Shaobo, who works with a tea plantation and farmers cooperative in Guzhang, told a visitor.

Qu told the Shenzhen Daily that the village where he lives has around 252 households. The tea business can help them earn hundreds to a thousand yuan in extra income each year. At present, the village’s average annual salary is about 20,000 yuan (US$2,821).

Qu said that this is the first time that his cooperative had attended the Charity Fair. “I hope that more people will learn about our tea so we can bring more income to our villagers,” said Qu.

Lu Aiqing, general manager of the Qinghai food company 5369, which is dedicated to producing ready to eat beef, said that they started collecting cows from local herdsmen in 2011 with the cooperation of the farmers cooperative in Wuxiangyi Town in Jiuzhi County, Qinghai. “We emphasize quality so we are very strict when we collect the cows. But if the cows meet our standards, we raise our purchasing prize. This has gradually formed a virtuous circle, as herdsmen all want their cows to be sold at a good price,” said Lu.

The company’s focus on quality has allowed it to become a regular beef product supplier for several sports bureaus in the country, including the Shanghai and Qinghai Sports Bureau.

As the business has grown, the company has successfully raised local herdsman out of poverty. “Each person can nearly earn an extra 4,000 yuan per year by selling their cows to us,” said Lu.