China Poverty Alleviation: Isolated town in Fujian turns its tea industry digital
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China made a vow to eradicate poverty by 2020, and one of the government's major battlefields is southeast China's Fujian province. Some of the remote villages there have been looking to side-step their isolation by embracing the country's digital economy. One such place is Xiadang.
Isolated by high mountains and deep valleys, the town of Xiadang was once dubbed the "Siberia of Shouning County". However, through its customized tea garden program, the villagers and their thousands of clients across China are just one click away from each other. And through dozens of networked cameras, customers can monitor the whole process of tea production over their phones, from plantation to packaging.
WANG MINGJIANG VILLAGER, XIADANG TOWN, FUJIAN PROVINCE "Customers feel more secure as they can watch the whole production process in real time. So the quality of our tea can be guaranteed. Once a client called me over the phone because he found I was smoking around the factory gate. So I won't do that again."
Wang Mingjiang's family were glad to see the price of their tea-leaves surge last year, resulting in their income being doubled. So what happened to bring about this change? In 2014, Xiadang established a unique brand named "the taste of countryside" to promote its tea industry. Both its management team and the local villagers became share-holders.
WANG MINGZU CPC PARTY SECRETARY XIADANG TOWN, FUJIAN PROVINCE "In the past, the villagers sold their own agricultural products at a very low price. They were not very open-minded at the same time. That's why we, the leadership, initiated a company, and separated the marketing from production."
Paying 20 thousand yuan -- or some three thousand US dollars -- customers can rent a section of the garden for five years. Each year, this section can produce about 50 kilograms of tea. So far, half of the 40-hectare garden has been apportioned to enterprises from all over China. And now, these transactions can be done within a matter of seconds online.
FAN CHUNYUE GENERAL MANAGER TASTE OF COUNTRYSIDE E-COMMERCE SITE "Most of our e-commerce team are college graduates who chose to return home. Besides our online-store in WeChat, we are currently working to create shops in more platforms, including JD.com and Taobao. In the future, we hope to get more villagers and their products involved in our online platforms."
Because of the digital economy, we see that being isolated geographically isn't such a problem anymore. Officials say all the villagers could be lifted out of poverty by the end of the year. Timothy Ulrich, CGTN.