"Precision poverty relief" campaign benefits Xiaoluoma village in Sichuan

TOP: Aerial photo shows the old residence of Li Guozhi and a downhill path he made amid the Qinling-Daba mountains in Xiaoluoma Village, Nuoshuihe Township, Tongjiang County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Sept. 22, 2016. BOTTOM: Aerial photo shows the relocation site where Li Guozhi lives in Xiaoluoma Village, Nuoshuihe Township, Tongjiang County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, April 2, 2020. Xiaoluoma is a village tucked away in the Qinling-Daba mountain areas of southwest China's Sichuan Province. For years, the villagers here had been living in poverty. In 2015, China's central government launched a "precision poverty relief" campaign which targeted such villages as Xiaoluoma. Since then a bunch of policies, including small loans, relocation and incentive programs began to benefit villages officially registered as "poor". Covered by the governmental campaign policy, poverty-stricken Xiaoluoma villagers saw a ray of hope. Li Guozhi was one of them. The beneficial terms he was offered had incentivized him to seriously think of shedding poverty. "Better strive than suffer," wrote Li on the mud wall of his dilapidated old house as self-encouragement, when the man waged his own anti-poverty war. To start with, Li launched an agricultural business that mixes animal husbandry and plant cultivation, on a 50,000-yuan (7,615-U.S. dollar) small loan. To transport his products, which range from cattle and sheep to corns and rattan pepper, Li purchased a motorized tricycle. He then flattened a mountaintop space and used it as a tricycle practice ground. After that, he also shoveled a path extending over one kilometer downhill. In just a few years, Li's business thrived. In 2019, his farm provided the family with an income exceeding 100,000 yuan (15,206 U.S. dollars). Over the past years, Li witnessed the life of his family getting better. In late 2016, Li's six-member family moved into a 150-square-meter two-storey house. Li paid 8,000 yuan (1,218 U.S. dollars) for the new residence while the remaining cost was subsidized by a poverty-relief relocation plan. (Xinhua/Liu Kun)