Boosting incomes in the hinterland
Cooperatives, incubators aid poverty alleviation in Northwest China’s Qinghai province
Milking yaks, herding them on the grassland, watching them graze and then driving them back into their pens: From dawn to dusk, this is the summer routine for Phurbu Tsering, a herdsman on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in Northwest China.
Of the roughly 100-strong herd under his care, 30 of the yaks belong to him, while the rest are owned by fellow residents of Shiyi, a village in Chindu county, Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Qinghai province.
Phurbu Tsering looks after other people’s yaks as a member of the village animal husbandry cooperative. The animals are the collective’s physical assets. “Since I joined the cooperative, my yaks have received better care and I have made more money than ever before,” he said.
Village head, Jikme Tamdrin, said: “In the past, it was a real challenge to get the livestock through the winter, especially when snow caused disasters. For example, in the winter of 2012 we lost 35 percent of our livestock as a result of heavy snowfalls.”
Shiyi is located on the Jiatang grassland, one of two major expanses in the prefecture. At an average altitude of 4,200 meters, it is susceptible to severe winter weather. At the end of 2015, about 208 families, nearly half the households in the village, were officially classified as povertystricken. The following year, with the help of the county’s agricultural and animal husbandry bureau, the village set up a cooperative to better develop livestock farming and find a way out of poverty.
“The first step was to integrate resources such as labor, pasture and the yaks,” said Jikme Tamdrin, who helped found the cooperative.
In the past, the grassland was contracted to each household piece by piece. Each family lived and grazed its animals far from their peers and rarely moved around the pasture.
“It was a waste of labor because no matter how many yaks a family had, one or 100, someone was always needed to graze them,” Jikme Tamdrin said.
“It also increased the environmental pressure on the grassland and made it harder for each family’s livestock to survive the winter, because herders could only graze livestock on their own stretch of grassland all year round, so they had nowhere to transfer the animals if they were hit by heavy snow.”
The situation has improved since the cooperative began managing the yaks, labor and grassland in a unified manner.
All the small pieces of grassland have been joined together, and the village’s entire pasture has been divided into four zones to enable rotational grazing across all four seasons. Fewer people can look after a larger number of livestock, and improved animal husbandry has greatly strengthened the ability to resist the impact of natural disasters.
“Some villagers have entrusted all their yaks to the cooperative, and its members take turns herding them. People who don’t herd have time to do handicrafts or learn a skill, such as cooking or vehicle repair, to make extra money.”
In addition, some seniors and parents
have been freed up to move to the county’s downtown area, either to live in retirement or take their children to school.
The cooperative also provides supplementary winter feed for the livestock, which helps the animals endure the cold and even severe snowstorms.
“At the turn of 2018-19, Yushu was stricken by once-in-a-decade snowstorms, but we only lost 5 percent of the yaks, basically the usual yearly rate,” Jikme Tamdrin said. “Supplementary feeding also makes it possible to milk the yaks in winter, and shortens the time for each animal to reach slaughter weight.”
The cooperative takes responsibility for selling yaks, milk, butter and other products, and shares bonuses with members at year-end. Annual profit grew from 360,000 yuan ($52,300) in 2017 to 520,000 yuan in 2019.
By last year, all 402 households in the village owned a share of the business in various forms by providing cash, labor, livestock or grassland. Thanks to the cooperative, government subsidies and other small sources of income, all the impoverished
Yushu families had been lifted out of poverty by the end of 2018.
“The village has reaped economic, environmental and social benefits simultaneously with the cooperative,” said Jamyang Samdrub, director of the county’s agricultural and animal husbandry bureau.
“People and animals are two essential elements of grassland ecology. Proper animal husbandry helps maintain the ecological balance on the grassland, as the yaks tread grass seeds into the soil and their feces is a natural fertilizer. The yaks, horses and Tibetan sheep eat different kinds of grasses, so they prevent excessive growth and maintain a good diversity of grasses.”
This method is preferable to a ban on grazing, he said, adding that, contrary to received wisdom, a ban would be bad for the land.
“In some areas, a complete ban on grazing animals would lead to greater grassland degeneration. Rational grazing and supplementary feeding are better choices to protect the grassland,” he said.
The expansion of animal husbandry has had other positive effects, creating a sort of ripple around the bedrock industry.
“Due to the rapid growth in demand for fodder, areas around Shiyi which used to grow crops have started growing fodder grass, which sells at a higher price than crops. It supports the development of animal husbandry in Shiyi while also raising the grass growers’ incomes,” Jamyang Samdrub said.
The improvements are not just limited to economics, as community relations have also taken a turn for the better.
“Herders no longer come into conflict with each other over boundary issues on the grassland. In the past, the exchange of information was rare among herders, but now over 390 villagers work together in the cooperative and frequently learn from each other,” Jamyang Samdrub said.
In all, 961 animal husbandry cooperatives have been set up in Qinghai, benefiting 650,000 people who previously lived in poverty.
Ninety-eight percent of Yushu’s residents are members of the Tibetan ethnic group. In addition to conventional animal husbandry, the area supports a range of cooperatives that use traditional Tibetan crafts and culture to boost poverty relief.
A business incubator park dedicated to poverty alleviation is bearing fruit in Yushu’s Nangqen county.
Since its launch in November 2017, the park has attracted and supported 15 rural cooperatives from across the county and benefited 320 impoverished households, or 1,122 people, directly and indirectly.
The businesses in the park display strong local features as they produce unique artifacts such as Tibetan black pottery, incense, carvings, highland barley wine, traditional clothing, felt products and thangka paintings.
Cooperatives in the park enjoy large working spaces and pay monthly rent of just 5 yuan per square meter. In addition, joining together has raised their profile in the county and beyond, helping to attract more business opportunities. The 170-plus employees each earn around 1,800 yuan a month. They had all been lifted out of poverty by the start of last year.
By the end of 2018, similar industrial parks had been established in 39 poverty-stricken counties in Qinghai, creating more than 8,000 jobs.
In some extreme cases, relocation has been the optimal choice to eradicate poverty; for example, when a person has no or little livestock or no access to industrial poverty alleviation policies due to their remote location.
“I feel the relocation policy is like a beam of sunlight streaming into my room and warming my heart,” said Yang Zongtai, a 43-year-old resident of a relocation settlement in Xinghai county, Hainan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Qinghai.
At an average altitude of 4,300 meters, some Xinghai residents face a harsh environment and poor infrastructure, which can cause poverty or exacerbate existing challenges. To solve the problem, the county government provided 210 million yuan and built the 100-hectare relocation settlement in 2017.
As of April last year, 853 povertystricken households, with 3,421 people, had moved to new homes from rural areas and pastures with poor infrastructure across the county.
Every family was offered a new house for free. Infrastructure — including asphalt roads, street lamps and bus stops — has been established and the residents also have access to running water and electricity.
In Qinghai, 31,700 impoverished households — 118,900 people — had been relocated and lifted out of poverty as of July 2019.
Public welfare jobs, rent- free shops, workshops, skills training classes, herb collecting and homestays: those are just some of the improvements and activities. The new residents enjoy more options to raise their incomes, even as they enjoy better infrastructure and more secure lives.