CNAF Employee Contributes to Poverty Alleviation in Ningxia

China National Aviation Fuel Group Limited (CNAF)'s employee Ming Zhian was sent in 2018 to Yanchi County on the borders of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, Inner Mongolia and the Ningxia Hui autonomous region to lift the county out of poverty.

Located on the South border of the Maowusu Desert in Ningxia, Yanchi is an old revolutionary base area and a national poverty-stricken county.

For more than three months, Ming gathered information about the county, which has eight towns and 102 administrative villages. His inspection of economic sources, natural and farming resources, local industries and industrial development laid a solid foundation for eliminating poverty in the county.

Promoted unique industries

During Ming's stay there, he promoted the industrial development mode of investment, production, marketing, re-investment and re-production.

Few people are living in the vast area of Yanchi where there is little rainfall and plenty of sunshine. The long distance between the county and the cities makes it difficult to sell agricultural products.

Ming realized that only industries suitable for the county can be long-lasting and that online marketing was a breakthrough opportunity.

He helped the local government make plans for developing industries of sheep and dried day lily buds from the aspects of brand construction, publicity and promotion, and went on to help them build a high-quality, standard, market-oriented and normalized industrial strategic system.

Moreover, to consolidate poverty-alleviation achievements and boost rural vitalization in Yanchi, Ming applied for a poverty-alleviation fund of 18.5 million yuan ($2.64 million) from CNAF to support projects like sheep-related industrial chain construction and professional cooperative improvement.

A full poverty-alleviation industrial chain of forage grass, breeding, deep processing and marketing now exists in the village.

CNAF also invested 3.3 million yuan in construction of the forage grass processing workshop which had been forced to stop because of a lack of money. An advanced microcomputer control system with large production capacity was also introduced, contributing to the automated grass processing.

Scientific institutes including Ningxia University were brought in to develop special feed for sheep to guarantee high-quality mutton at reasonable prices.

By October 2019, the workshop was capable of processing 30,000 tons of mutton annually and was driving grass planting, processing and transportation in the county.

Yanchi's mutton is now sold in 27 large and medium-sized cities and was served at the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016, the BRICS Summit in Xiamen in 2017, the SCO Summit in Qingdao in June 2018 and the 2019 Summer Davos Forum.

In 2019, the county had 3.15 million sheep and more than 80 percent of the villagers participated in the industry. Over half of local farmers' income was gained from the sheep industry.

Increased investment in agricultural science

Science and technology also played a role in lifting the county out of poverty.

In 2018, Ming applied 1 million yuan from CNAF to bring in new types of wolfberries, or medlar. They were of larger size and better appearance and had a higher yield, which supported stable development of the local wolfberry base that had nearly closed down in the early days through lack of experience and competitiveness.

Another 1 million yuan were given to the county from CNAF between 2019 and 2020 to support highly-efficient and water-conserving irrigation as well as integration of water and fertilizer projects in the wolfberry base.

The base is expected to produce 20,000 kg of wolfberries annually in the future.

What's more, experts from the department of forestry and the wolfberry research bureau of the academy of agriculture and forestry in Ningxia were invited to the base to teach local people skills of wolfberry planting.

In 2018 and 2019, the base paid respectively 600,000 yuan and 1 million yuan to its employees and offered 30 stable jobs. More than 1,000 residents from poverty-stricken families are now working there.

Promoted agricultural products nationwide by innovative e-commerce platform

In addition to sheep Yanchi had many other high-quality agricultural products like the wolfberries, the dried day lily buds and various kinds of grains, which were not widely known.

Their unsatisfactory marketing wasted the products' value. To promote consumption, Ming reported the situation to his company and increased the local products popularity among consumers.

Since 2018, local agricultural products valued at more than 140 million yuan have been sold and 10 million yuans' worth was purchased by CNAF.

To widen marketing channels of Yanchi's products, CNAF reached agreements to sell them with several e-commerce platforms including the online shopping mall of the Agricultural Bank of China, womai.com of COFCO and JD.com, all of which are popular online shopping platforms in China.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, CNAF participated in the poverty-alleviation e-commerce platform initiated by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, helping promote more than 10 kinds of Yanchi's products including sheep, day lily buds, grains and wolfberries.

More than 17,500 kg of hard-to-sell wolfberries produced by Fengze planting base in Yanchi were sold out.

From January to May this year, Ming helped Yanchi sell products valued at more than 30 million yuan via the online platform and CNAF purchased goods worth over 2 million yuan.

As 2020 is a crucial year in securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Ming said he will continue to fulfill his responsibilities and contribute to rural vitalization in Yanchi.

Yanchi's sheep are one of its best-known brands in China. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Yanchi villagers work at the wolfberry production base. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

CNAF helps promote Yanchi's local agricultural products on the e-commerce poverty-alleviation platform initiated by SASAC during the COVID-19 outbreak. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]