Poverty Alleviation of All China Federation of Trade Unions

　　【Overview】  In 2009, All China Federation of Trade Unions (brief as ACFTU hereinafter) implemented the important strategic decision to accelerate poverty alleviation and development made by the central party committee and the State Council. Guided by the scientific development outlook, ACFTU promoted the fixed-point poverty alleviation in Heshun County in Shanxi, relieved the poverty in Heshun County, and improved the impoverished people’s ability to increase their income.

　　ACFTU pays much attention to fixed-point poverty alleviation, selects excellent middle-aged and young cadres to conduct poverty alleviation in Heshun County, puts fixed-point poverty alleviation into the agenda, listens to work report regularly, conducts in-depth survey, learns the situation in time and reinforces working instructions. In 2009, 51 persons (times) went to survey the fixed-point counties. In poverty alleviation, ACFTU pays attention to stresses, controls the different features from local poverty alleviation, exerts ACFTU’s leverage of poverty alleviation funds and the demonstrative function of aided projects. In 2009, ACFTU invested poverty alleviation funds of 3.5 million Yuan (1.5 million Yuan in cash and 2 million Yuan in materials) into Heshun County, sent 3 temporary cadres, developed 10 poverty alleviation projects, introduced 4 advanced technologies, held 6 training seminars and trained over 8000 cadres and masses.

　　With the efforts of ACFTU and local poverty alleviation departments, Heshun County has experienced hopeful changes. According to the poverty standard of 1,067 Yuan per capita per year, the impoverished population was reduced from 64280 in 2002 (869 Yuan/person) to 51,270 (including 7870 absolutely impoverished population and 43,400 population of low income) in 2009, by 13010 in 7 tyears.

　　【Poverty alleviation by training】  Rely and integrate the training resources of Heshun County Bureau of Poverty Alleviation, Agriculture Bureau, Science & Technology Bureau, Forestry Bureau, Rural Economy Office and other agriculture-related departments, provide practical technique training for farmers; invite 8 experts and professors from Shanxi Agricultural University to give patrol lectures on cattle breeding techniques, economical forest planting management, popularization of new maize variety and prevention of common poultry diseases, etc; faced with the return of rural migrant workers under the global financial crisis, assist local poverty alleviation and labor departments to provide labor transferring training, improve the re-employment and venture ability of returned rural migrant workers and other impoverished people. In 2009, ACFTU, through re-employment of impoverished urban residents and rural labor transfer training, ACFTU help 209 impoverished rural residents to find posts and transferred 6,333 rural labors.

　　【Industrial aid】  Introduce and popularize new agricultural technologies, launch featured agricultural aid and promote the adjustment to local agriculture structure. The main aid projects included: experimental introduction of new planting technologies (high yield potato planting technology), demonstration and popularization of new dried fruit varieties (2,000 Mu demonstrative walnut forest), introduction and popularization of cultivation technologies (artificial insemination technology of pig), industrial infrastructure construction (egg hatchery, green flower house) and new cultivation projects (colored pheasant, scattered breeding of chickens, breed rabbit cultivation project).

　　【Farmer benefiting information platform construction】  In 2009, Popular Science 110 Service Station Project was supported through the construction of the information platform to serve issues concerning agriculture, the countryside and farmers, and a bridge to prosperity was built for impoverished people. Agricultural Science 110 Service Station is the fastest way to solve farmers’ remote problems by agriculture and animal husbandry experts’ reply to farmers’ problems on issues concerning agriculture, the countryside and farmers through telephone and information network of science association, China Mobile and CNC, and the Popular Science Farmer Benefiting Hotline is available round the clock. Organize agriculture and animal husbandry technicians to provide technical instructions in the fields, provide centralized training, provide comprehensive services to foster new-type farmers, and build the green channels to provide services before/during/after production.

　　【Poverty alleviation in education】  In 2009, ACFTU paid attention to the healthy development of local education, invited special grade teachers of middle schools in Beijing to provide teaching training in impoverished counties to improve local teaching level; ordered out-of-class reading materials for all middle and primary school students in the country, and helped teenagers in the county to participate in Jinzhong City Letter Competition; upgraded and refitted the equipments of Heshun County’s remote poverty alleviation & education website; in addition, it sponsored (donated) the construction of farmers’ reading centers, employee’s reading centers and mobile reading centers of college graduate who work as village officials to promote the reading of all people.

　　【Aid to impoverished groups】  Improve impoverished groups’ ability to get rich, pay attention to the impoverished groups’ difficulties in life and production. In 2009, ACFTU upgraded and refitting the human and animal drinking water facilities of towns in lack of water sources, introduced and popularized biomass curing equipments, constructed centralized biogas pool projects, and greeted impoverished senior people On Senior Day, etc.

　　The ideas of impoverished people are being changed, their skills, quality and venture ability has been improved. The common lazy ideas in impoverished and underdeveloped areas are very serious in Heshun County. In recent years, the implementation of farmer-benefiting policies has awaken impoverished groups’ awareness to shake off poverty, the propaganda and guide of poverty alleviation departments at all levels have changed the ideas of the mass a lot, and impoverished group’s desire to get rich is enhanced. Through training, the skills, quality and venture ability of impoverished people have been improved, and some representative venture models have occurred.

　　【Poverty alleviation in project funds】  In 2009, ACFTU invested aid funds of about 1.5 million Yuan into Heshun County, with 70% into development of featured local industry. The poverty alleviation in project funds (direct subsidy and soft loans) brought social funds of over 20 million Yuan directly, and functioned as a poverty alleviation fund lever very well.

　　【Experiment and popularization of new technologies and new varieties】  The land area of Heshun County is 22.5 million Mu, 80% of the land is mountain, 10% is water and 10% is farmland; the area of farmland is only more than 300,000 Mu. Faced with the situation, ACFTU put stress on introduction of new technologies and new varieties in poverty alleviation to boost the stable development of high-efficiency agriculture and dried fruit forest.

1. Introduce high-yield potato planting technology. Potato is the main crop of Heshun, but the output is always not stable enough. Faced with the situation, ACFTU regarded high-yield potato planting technology as a stressed aid project. Phase 1 in 2009 resulted in increase of output by 10%-40%. The climate in Heshun County and most parts of Shanxi is special, and the high yield of the technology was not presented. However, the results were recognized by the local agricultural department, agricultural technology experts and the local people. ACFTU will summarize experience, perfect plans and get ready for the phase 2 experiment based on phase 1 experiment.

2. Support economic walnut forest demonstration project. This is a stressed project in ACFTU’s aid to the development of local advantageous industries in the mountain areas in Heshun. Songyan Town has the tradition of planting walnut trees, has some planting area and scale, however, the varieties are out of date and the output was small. Therefore, ACFTU assisted Songyan Town to execute 10,000 Mu of Economic Walnut Forest Project in over 10 impoverished villages and provided subsidy for 2,000 Mu of walnut seedlings; the measure supported and encouraged the local government and people, and Songyan Town finished new walnut tree planting area of over 7000 Mu in 2009.

　　(All China Federation of Trade Unions)