Businesses help shake off poverty

Fu Jianrong at his cattle farm in Huichang. [Photo/China Daily]

In recent years, he has turned his attention to promoting tourism and developing other medicinal plants that take a long time to grow, but have a higher economic return.

"This business might not make a profit for three or four decades. I am doing something that will outlive me, but it's worth doing for the future of the people," Fu said.

Huichang, a traditionally agricultural county, has an area of 2,700 square km and a population of 520,000. Many there survive by growing rice, vegetables and citrus trees. It is State-supported and poverty-stricken.

The mountainous county featured in a poem written by Mao Zedong in 1934, praising the beauty of its unique landscape.

It was also home, for 10 months in 1932, to Deng Xiaoping, China's former leader who initiated the country's process of reform and opening-up.

In 1977, Song Ruisen and some local officials went to Beijing for a national convention. They wanted to bring Deng Xiaoping some dried tofu, a local snack that has been made and eaten in the county for hundreds of years.

"We had yet to leave our province and the dried tofu had already gone bad. It was so embarrassing," Song recalled.

"Travelers and guests from outside liked the special taste. Almost every family here cooks it, but we had no idea how to keep it fresh and make money from it."

Determined to make a business out of the local delicacy, in the early 1990s, Song and his friend Jiang Chi co-founded a food company to produce dried tofu.

"Two decades ago, Huichang had no modern production lines, processing and packaging technology, or skilled workers," he said.

The pair visited big cities such as Shanghai and learned new production and sales techniques.

They designed special equipment to process the dried tofu and with the help of special poverty-support loans, they bought machines and hired workers.

Now their company's annual revenue is 15 million yuan and their dried tofu is sold across the province and in neighboring areas.

In the next issue, we will report on the 42-square-km swathe of undulating topography in Huichang county and the Meilin Temple on the Panshan Mountains, another major tourist attraction in the county.