County helping families out of poverty through pear planting initiative

Guanyang county in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has played its part in targeted poverty alleviation by establishing and protecting the trademark and geographical indication of local agricultural products.

Through a three-year action plan to enhance Guangxi's trademark management and support targeted poverty alleviation, the autonomous region has forged 92 geographical indication-protected products－including the Guanyang pear, Liuzhou luosifen (a Chinese rice noodle dish) and Rong'an kumquat－and 67 geographical indication trademarks, according to Bi Jundong, deputy director of the Guangxi Administration for Market Regulation.

Daren village is where the Guanyang pear originates. With 902 households and 3,111 residents, the village has worked to develop a high-quality fruit industry with a pear planting demonstration area covering 6.67 square kilometers.

To further develop ecological agriculture and eliminate poverty, the county government grants awards and subsidies to encourage poor households to participate in the fruit cultivation and the existing workers to expand their planting scale.

The pear planting demonstration area is a part of Daren village's modern agriculture demonstration area that covers 16.67 sq km.

The modern agriculture demonstration area covers 4,200 households and more than 14,500 people, of which 754 households and 2,822 people are impoverished.

Among the 2,822 people is Zheng Aijiao. She is the sole breadwinner of her family, after her husband lost the ability to work due to an accident a few years ago. With two kids to bring up, Zheng has struggled.

Thanks to the help of the local government, she attended technical training to learn professional pear-planting techniques and has been able to earn more money and provide for her family.

This summer, Zheng had a harvest from a 10,000 square-meter pear and plum plantation, with an average yield per hectare reaching 3,000 kilograms.

"I made more than 50,000 yuan ($7,398) this year just from selling pears," Zheng said.