The second visit seen by Gavin

We visited 4 villages during these days. It’s exciting that we use motor to go to the far villages. The 1st one is Yutang village. In this ID village, the leader told us the biogas had changed their hygienic conditions a lot. They can put the waste from animals into the biogas to make electricity. And they can save about 2000 RMB to buy coal and pay the bill of electricity.

The economic crops of this village are tobacco and vegetable especially cabbages. The peasants plant the vegetables at the beginning of spring because the good weather where other places do not have at that time. Then rent trucks to transport them to Shuicheng and Guiyang city to sell. The difficult is the price of fertilizer is very high.

The 2nd village, Dengjia Ying village, is located at the wide slope of a mountain. The economic crop is just tobacco and peasants plant corn and potato for their food and animals’ food. The road to the village is not very good although there is a railway going through the village (without station).

The 3rd one is Fanjia Tian village. There are 2 man-made lakes above this village. So they have enough water for planting crops. They have the same crops like the other villages. But we got a good news that several peasants in this village plant vegetables all the year. They do not plant corn and potato because they don’t have animals. They plant different kinds of cabbage to sell in the nearby markets. The problem is that the vegetables always have big roots.

The last one is called Zhongzhai village. It’s the farthest one we have been. The peasants not only sell tobacco but also sell a lot of walnuts. There are more walnut trees than any other villages in this place. The government helps the families to build reservoirs for drinking and farming. The biggest problem here is the road. Some of the families bring the tobacco from home to the gathering station by foot. And there is just one road for cars from Niupeng town to here.
After the investigation from these days, I find that the peasants here in the villages really want to improve there life. The young people would like to go to the cities to make money. So the older parents left home to look after their lands. For they didn’t have a good education during their generation, to accept a new way of farming is difficult to them. They don’t know where to get seeds, which one is suit for the soil of their land and how to take care of a new plant. In my opinion, these peasants need some training about technical knowledge and helps for the beginning of a new crop planting, such as financial help.

I think the market could be the second important thing. Most of the peasants don’t plant too much villages and fruit or any other new crops because they always worry about that they can not sell their products. There is barely a big market and a regular purchaser nearby the villages. I think it one of the reason that peasant jut plant corn and potato for themselves and tobacco for money. So I think it is very important to find ways to solve the problems what the peasants are all worrying about.

Our trip is continuing. Wait for my news.