Taking the Bull by the Horns in Securing a Better Life

Yin Bao's family of four live in Hatubuqi Village, Bayanmangha Township, Kerqin Right Banner Xing'an League in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. For a variety of reasons, including serious illness, and the need for Yin Bao's wife to stay at home to look after their two young children, the family, which had to borrow from relatives and friends to make ends meet, was one of the registered impoverished households in their village. 

In 2016, Yin Bao purchased a heifer, using a national poverty alleviation subsidy. Since then, the family has seen its life turn around. As cattle farmers, they enjoy subsidized loans, as well as access to services related to technology applications, epidemic prevention, and sales through the cooperative, which has meant not only a good income but also low anxiety. Now the family has grown their herd from 3 to 11, and they take in an annual income of about 40,000 yuan from breeding cattle as well as from agricultural subsidies. In addition, Yin Bao also helps raise cattle at a local cooperative, where he is responsible for topping up the straw, feeding the cattle, and cleaning out the pens, which adds another 60,000 yuan onto his income each year. In 2019, Yin Bao's family officially shook off poverty. Talking about the changes of the past few years, the family is extremely pleased.

A bustling cattle market in Kerqin Right Banner, Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. PHOTO BY LIANG YONGFENG 

Yin Bao's family successfully rose out of poverty under the guidance of China's targeted poverty alleviation policy and Kerqin Right Banner's strategy of focusing on cattle farming, under which the cattle industry serves as the leading sector for poverty alleviation and rural revitalization based on local conditions. When it comes to realizing a better life, the banner is truly taking the bull by the horns. Not only does the cattle industry carry the hopes of Yin Bao's family, but it is also the driver of industrial development, the key to ecological governance, and an engine humming along toward moderate prosperity in Kerqin Right Banner. 

Overgrazing, ecological damage, and soil degradation severely impacted farming, and economic and social development in general, in Kerqin Right Banner, reducing it to a deeply impoverished area of Inner Mongolia. Yet, the banner was still recognized as China's best breeding and fattening belt for beef cattle. Here, farmers and herdsmen are universally steeped in the traditions and experience of cattle breeding, which provides the area with unique resources and advantages for the development of the cattle industry. As a result, under the guidance of national poverty alleviation policies, and with the strong support of partner organizations, Kerqin Right Banner, based on its advantageous resources, formulated an integrated planting, breeding, and processing plan for its beef cattle industry. It ramped up cooperation with leading beef cattle enterprises, bolstered credit and other policy support, and promoted large-scale, intensive cattle breeding featuring sophisticated technology, high standards, industrialized operations, and brand development.

If the bottlenecks of development are in the industrial sector, then that it is also where the solutions inevitably lie. At the beef cattle breeding base in Bailige Industrial Park for Poverty Alleviation, more than 3,000 heads of cattle are kept in standard cattle pens. Using the industrial park as a platform, Kerqin Right Banner has developed an industrial chain for its beef cattle industry by attracting leading enterprises for livestock products and more than 20 village collective organizations. This has led to the creation of a basic framework for industrialization, under which the leading enterprises take their lead from the market and give guidance to the breeding base, which is connected to the cattle farmers. This framework has effectively solved a series of problems, such as a low level of quality breeding, overly extensive operations, and environmental pollution. In addition, Kerqin Right Banner has helped farmers and herdsmen change traditional attitudes and business models by paying subsidies to compensate for a prohibition on grazing, increasing subsidies for farm machinery and equipment, offering training classes to improve breeding, and arranging for industrial advisers to visit farmers and give guidance. By vigorously supporting the cultivation of new types of business entities such as cooperatives and large breeding households, as well as a business model based on "cooperatives plus poor households and farmers," costs and risks have been reduced and the incomes of farmers and herdsmen have been increased. The stock of beef cattle in Kerqin Right Banner is rising rapidly at present, standing at 326,000 today compared with 230,000 in 2018. There are 13,900 beef cattle breeding households, 282 cooperatives, and 5 leading enterprises that have successfully settled in the area. Thanks to the growing momentum of the beef cattle industry, the per capita disposable income of farmers and herdsmen has also risen significantly. 

Kerqin Right Banner has provided an answer to the problem of how to develop the beef cattle industry while prohibiting overgrazing and how to develop the livestock industry while protecting the environment. It insists on placing equal emphasis on ecological protection and economic and social development, vigorously boosting environmentally friendly animal husbandry, and creating an ecologically friendly circular development model. It has encouraged farmers and herdsmen to renovate their holding pens, implemented a ban on overgrazing without impacting breeding, and promoted the indoor housing of cattle and forage planting and processing. This has enabled farmers and herdsmen to reap more revenue and benefits from indoor cattle raising and industrialized straw management, with wins secured in both green development and greater prosperity. 

To meet the surge in demand for forage from the cattle industry, Kerqin Right Banner has adjusted its planting structure, sowing more than 666 hectares of alfalfa, which it distributes to farmers on demand at harvest time, thus greatly reducing their costs. The establishment of a straw conversion plant, which processes corn stalks into feed, has not only achieved 100% recycling of straw but also reduced the price of feed from 3,700 yuan a ton to 600 yuan a ton, much to the delight of many farmers. While livestock manure is generally a problem in rural environmental management, it no longer poses an issue for Kerqin Right Banner. The 66 large-scale farms in the banner have installed manure collection, storage, treatment, and usage facilities, which facilitate the return of all collected manure to the fields. This is not only good for the environment, but also improves the growth of crops, reduces fertilizer use, and prevents the soil from hardening and soil fertility from declining. In addition, the cattle industry has also opened up opportunities for farmers and herdsmen in ecotourism and the production of dairy products such as cheese, butter, and milk curd. The cattle, and the string of economic and ecological benefits that come with cattle raising, have not only strengthened the confidence of poor households like Yin Bao's about lifting themselves out of poverty, but also created real benefits for people who have lived here for generations. 

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 16, 2020)