Urban intellectuals try to revive village life(2)

Inset: Pineapple tarts made by Boxue villagers Photo: Courtesy of Chen Tongkui

This year, the operation of the council was suspended, because Chen found that it was practically impossible to continue reforms.

That's when Chen began to further think about the complicated profit distribution in the rural areas and started to shift direction.

Reviving the traditional relationships between farmers and the land has become a long-time issue given the context of massive urbanization.

In the past decade, social change has intensified the urban-rural conflicts and left the rural areas deserted.

It has caused severe problems, such as the influx of the migrant workers that burdens the capacities of the city, and old people who were left without family in the rural areas.

As with intellectuals in the 1920s who attempted to revive the countryside, a wave of young people, including Chen, began to ponder on how they should save their home villages.

Experts praised these campaigns. Yang Tuan, deputy director of Institute of Social Policies of China Academy of Social Sciences, said there are mainly four different groups of people who lead renovation in the rural areas, the migrant workers, young people who are highly educated, the successful people who came from the villages and NGOs.

"They want to end backwardness in the rural areas and keep farmers on their own land, which deserves encouragement. By passing on the positive energy, they could influence more people to participate," Yang Tuan, told the Global Times.

E-commerce

When Chen was rethinking his community rebuilding strategy, Liu Jingwen, a former senior editor of Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily, found a shortcut: help farmers to sell their products.

Liu is worried about the disappearing of the traditional farming. Born in Zhanjiang, South China's Guangdong Province, he had witnessed the disintegration of the traditional rural society in his home village. Compared with villages in eastern China, Liu believes, the remote areas in Xinjiang needed more help.

Liu, who had a chance to visit Xinjiang, felt inspired to help local villagers to sell dried fruits and nuts online. So far, he has established 15 farmers' cooperatives in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"People in south Xinjiang still adopt a traditional way of farming. They respect the land and its relationship with humanity. But the biggest problem is how to sell the agricultural products and make money," Liu, told the Global Times.

However, due to the language barrier and religious differences, Liu found changing the local people's mind and make them understand the e-commerce was important.

"The first step was to change people's mind. For a few centuries, smallholder and its economy and consciousness have been a shackle to innovation. Most of them live their lives following a natural way. That was how we should start to change," Liu told the Global Times.

Liu also mentioned, he hoped by developing the farmers' cooperatives, the later generations of the farmers need no longer to work in the cities as migrant workers. "Farmers should be capable of earning a life by farming. The later generations should live a decent life," Liu said.

At the very beginning, Uyghur villagers didn't trust that Liu would realize his promise of helping to sell the products, so they were not actively participate into the cooperatives.

The situation began to change when Liu started to select some respectful local people who were knowledgeable and understood e-commerce to establish a "trust system." Local farmers started to participate.

Now, Aji, a local youngster, has become Liu's partner and taken responsibility of connecting the 15 cooperatives in Xinjiang. Liu hoped more and more local youngsters can return to their hometowns and make contribution.

Setting up cooperatives is a costly affair. Sometimes, to help change the society, Liu had to balance the economic benefits and public affairs of the villagers.

"I never said I am doing charity. I have to ensure the operation of the cooperatives, and in the meantime, I also have to take care of the public affairs," Liu said.

The cooperative purchased agricultural products at a price 10 percent higher than the market price, to at least ensure the farmers' interests. Liu has also launched classes to train local farmers in how to improve their agricultural skills and ensure the quality.

Now, over 2,000 households all over Xinjiang cooperate with Liu.

Liu started a new project this year, letting people adopt jujube trees. "Let us return to the farmland together. By cooperation with the farmers, we gradually came to know how much we had no idea about the land and the agricultural products on the earth," Liu said.

Balance of interests

Yang Tuan says people who are engaged in the village rebuilding have something in common.

Most of them were born after the 1980s, and lack the traumas of earlier generations, but they have encountered the same dilemmas.

"Escaping rural life in the teens, they also felt it hard to reach the core issue among the farmers and in the rural society simply relied on their own capability," Yang said.

This year, Chen explored a new way and decided to shift his focus from community rebuilding to the selling of local lychees. Beforehand, he had survived on a grant from a research center in Shanghai.

This year, Chen earned 200,000 yuan after selling lychees, but he used 110,000 yuan to invite villagers to visit the Taiwanese village that had encouraged him. "They have to go out to see how others are doing, so that their mind could be encouraged," Chen told the Global Times.

"We're not giving charity. We want to stimulate farmers and make them stand out to speak for themselves," Liu said.