Barren land becomes rice terraces in Rui'an

In this harvest season, farmers are busy with the first round of rice harvest in the terraces of Aohou village of Huling town, Rui'an city. It is hard to believe that the present terraced rice fields used to be a barren land a year ago.

Located in the Jinzi Mountain --“the highest mountain in East Wenzhou”, Aohou village is a famous overseas Chinese village due to nearly two-thirds of the villagers living abroad. Because of the location and lack of young and strong labor force, the village became increasingly desolate with increasing wasteland year by year. To change the situation, in the first half of this year, Aohou village transferred the use right of more than one hundred mu (1mu = 0.16 acre ) of wasteland to Zhang Changrui, an overseas Chinese of this village, and let him manage it.

“Both my parents are farmers. I worked with them in the fields when I was a child. I came back home for the Chines New Year, and saw the land was abandoned. I wanted to stay here and help my village, for I got tired of staying abroad,” said Zhang Changrui. With the help of village committee, he set up a grain, vegetable and fruit planting farm under his management.

Tiding up the terraces, buildng roads, picking up the abandoned orchards, developing vegetable planting base, since the beginning of June of this year, Aohou village takes on a scene of prosperity. Some overseas Chinese who are back home for temporarily holidays, together with local villagers who are back home from working outside, have been busy with seed breeding, weeding, transplanting......The villagers can earn more than 200 yuan per day.

At present, the first 30 mu of rice are already ripe, and the subsequent rice will be harvested in nearly 20 days, which is expected to increase the village's income by 250,000 yuan. In addition to the rice, Aohou village also transferred nearly 400 mu of wasteland, which are planned to plant white radish, potatoes, and other crops.“Aohou village has a unique geographical advantage, abound in selenium-rich plants,” introduced Wu Yanshao, agricultural science officer of Huling town. They are currently exploring the planting of organic and selenium-rich rice. If it succeeds next year, it could greatly enhance the unit price of rice and increase the income of the villagers. (ZhongXin)