Farmers put a new spin on straw to reduce poverty
JUST like the fairy tale, rice farmers in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have found a way to spin straw into gold.
Modern farming machinery has replaced cattle, leaving farmers with a surfeit of straw, a once valuable resource that both fed and cushioned the beasts after a long day in the fields.
Instead of wasting it, the resourceful villagers decided to spin it into rope, turning cattle fodder into a cash cow.
He Yuanzhi, a rice farmer in Chengbei Township, recalls the anger of passersby when he burned his waste straw.
“After harvesting my rice, I burned the straw as it had no use and would have affected the new rice if I left it in the paddy fields,” he said.
But after speaking with poverty reduction officials, he bought two machines that spin straw into rope. With a stint as a machine worker at a brick plant, the new task came easily to him.
Soon, he found he could not make enough to meet demand.
“The ropes are popular with marble and tile makers, and gardening companies also use them to tie turf rolls. So demand is not a problem,” he says.
Hezhou, a city 70 kilometers from Chengbei, is the largest hub in China for artificial stone production.
Over the past three months, He has sold 400 rolls of rope, pocketing over 5,000 yuan (US$726). He plans to order another 10 machines.
The rope business is a perfect opportunity for poor families to make money and play an active role in their own prosperity, said Xiao Fang, a poverty reduction official.
The township has over 1,200 households under the poverty line, 23 percent of the population. The local government plans to help 500 of them improve their financial standing this year, part of a wider commitment by central government to lift all of China’s poor out of poverty by 2020.
The township government plans to purchase 50 rope machines to rent to those who cannot afford to buy one.
The rent money will be used for public services, Xiao said.
A machine will cost around 100 to 200 yuan a year to rent, and 750 rolls of rope can generate 6,000 yuan from just one hectare of rice straw.
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