Chen Suhou: From vice governor to farmer By Jessie Tao (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2005-12-29 14:58
Chen's experience in presiding over the provincial irrigation work as deputy
governor told him agriculture is impossible without irrigation. This partly
explains why Nanbao Town now boasts the best irrigation network in all of Lingao
County. Furthermore, to meet the farmers' demands for agriculture technologies,
Chen actively contacted relevant agricultural technological sectors, urging them
to organize training sessions in the countryside and solve the problems emerging
in agricultural production.
Chen had only a seven-year education before he first went to work, so he
fully understands the pain of illiteracy. In order to prevent the local kids
from falling their urban peers at the starting line of education, he decided to
open a kindergarten. In 2003, with the help of Chen, a local teacher received a
loan of
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Local farmers are doing
exercises in the village park. [Xinhua] | 10,000
yuan (US$1209.9) from the Rural Credit Cooperation to build the first
kindergarten, which currently holds 56 kids in two classes.
Meanwhile, to provide the farmers a place for relaxation during their slack
farming season, Chen reached for a poverty-free program launched by the Longhua
District of Haikou, capital city of Hainan Province. With the money and building
materials provided by the program, a cultural center and a village park were
soon installed, where the farmers can have a cup of tea, sing, read, learn
computer skills, and do exercises, enjoying life just like the urban people.
Established as a civilized ecological village, Songhai Village soon got rid
of its identity of "bachelors' village." As Chen said, "Instead of worrying
about their other half, the lads here are now busy considering which woman to
marry."
With the ideology changed and environment beautified, to rid the village of
poverty became Chen's greatest wish. Considering the rich natural resources and
via field investigation and prudent deliberation, Chen decided to incorporate
the "Farmers' Banana Cooperation," under which every member household grew
bananas as a means to get rich. However, due to the failure in banana plantation
in 1996, few people were interested in the cooperation.
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Chen Suhou is inquiring a
local farmer about the banana production. [Xinhua]
| At the very beginning, there were only 7 member
households, growing a total of 54-acre bananas, with Chen as the consultant.
Brokered by Chen, the seven households combined to get a loan of 62,000 yuan
(US$7,501.6) from the local rural credit cooperation in 2003.
The plan paid off a year later, reaping a total income of 400,000 yuan (US$
48397.44) and a record per capita annual income of 1,800 yuan (US$ 217.79) in
Songhai Village.
In 2005, almost every household in Songhai Village grew bananas, with a total
plantation area of 6,000 acres. As bananas sells very well, the farmers not only
cleared their loans on time, but also increased the deposit amount, which is to
the rural credit cooperation's benefits. Nowadays Songhai Village enjoys a sound
reputation as a "banana and credit village."
"I'll never part with agriculture all my life!"
Chen once wrote in his book Farmers and I: "Only by placing farmers'
interests on the top place can the problems in agriculture and rural areas be
sorted out." It is right what he practiced in reality: never leaving agriculture
and farmers for a day in the past dozens of years no matter what post he held.
As he told reporters, when he was deputy governor of Hainan Province, he went
to the countryside every month, 90 days per year, leaving footprints in the
province's 306 towns, 90 state-owned farms, and nearly all of its reservoirs and
channels.
"All my life has ultimately fallen to one word -- agriculture. I will never
part with it during my lifetime," added Chen.
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