Located in southwest Sichuan, Liangshan is home to China’s largest ethnic Yi community
and also one of the country’s poorest areas.
But by organizing cooperatives to gain economies of scale,
Yi farmers are increasing their incomes.
In Zhaojue, eight farmers cooperatives have been set up specializing in potato or sheep
farming.
“Our cooperative includes 1,337 households, 572 of which are registered as poor.
We provide farmers with (potato) seeds to grow and market their products through the
cooperative.”
“Our cooperative was founded on March 15, 2017 with members
from three villages and
a total of 820 households, including 367 registered
poor households.
Our cooperative focuses on unified breed, unified supply, unified management, and unified
marketing.”
The project provides each cooperative with office facilities, seeds, training, basic
infrastructure and a facilitator.
“I play a bridging role.
At the time its founding, I helped farmers understand what a cooperative is and
why we wanted to set up a cooperative.
In training, I learn how to grow potatoes first and then share the knowledge with others.”
The government is also looking for ways to improve market access for the cooperatives.
“Our county plans to set up eight e-commerce centers in our cooperatives to help promote
our products online.”
Almost all farmers in the project area have joined the cooperatives,
with high expectations for the potential benefits.
“The price of potato was low.
We couldn’t sell and fed it mostly to pigs.
Now the cooperative teaches us how to grow potato,
provides us with good seeds and helps sell our products.
Our income will increase.
It will help pay for my children’s education.”
“The cooperative has helped build sheep sheds and bought lambs for us.
With more sheep, I will sell them to the cooperative to process and sell.
Our income will improve.”
“The project has played a positive role in accelerating poverty reduction and increasing
people’s incomes.
Now we require every poor village to set up a cooperative to help people out of poverty
and develop agriculture-industry collectively.”
Over 945,000 people – 343,000 of which registered as poor, and 241,000 of which are ethnic minorities – have benefitted from the World Bank-supported Poverty Alleviation and Agriculture-Based Industry Pilot and Demonstration in Poor Areas project. It covers 537 villages in 27 counties in poor areas across Gansu, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, supporting up to 400 farmer cooperatives.