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A rich life for Tibet barley farmers
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Once reeling under poverty with barely enough harvest to make ends meet, Tenzin is now able to sell his crops at a high price without even leaving his home.
The 76-year-old farmer from Longsang Village in the city of Xigaze, in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, has been able to change his fortune through highland barley cultivation, which is perhaps the only crop growing in the plateau region with an altitude of more than 4,000 meters.
Previously, Tenzin and his family, who live in the mountainous Village, cultivated the soil all by themselves. And adding to their struggles, rain was the only source of irrigation, resulting in meager yields.
After the harvest, Tenzin would keep some for himself and hire a car to transport the rest to nearby counties for sale.
“Sometimes we even had to take it to the pastoral areas as barter for commodities such as sheepskin and ghee. It was difficult to exchange it for cash,” he said.
Tenzin’s life began to change in 2016 when the local government launched a relocation project. The year, Tenzin and his 10 family members moved to a relocation site in Longsang Village, about 4 kilometers from his former house.
Authorities in Tibet have made great efforts in relocating impoverished people living in harsh natural conditions to areas with relatively rich production capacity and better infrastructure.
So far, 965 relocation sites have been constructed in Tibet, with 266,000 people moving into new houses, according to Wu Yingjie, secretary of Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China.
“The local government even allowed us to choose the house we like, so we picked the biggest one,” Tenzin, who now lives in a two-story house, said with a smile. They also received a resettlement allowance of 130,000 yuan (US$19,812) from the government.
His land has gradually become arable. After the relocation, both mechanized farming and wells that the local government helped them set up greatly enhanced efficiency and yield.
A processing company named Tibet Deqin Sunshine Manor Co was also established in Jiangdang Township, which administers Longsang Village.
The company found that local processing enterprises were producing on a small scale, and their sales were mostly limited to the local market. The unique health benefits of highland barley, however, hold immense market potential.
The company decided to start producing value-added products such as noodles, biscuits and nutrition powder.
To accelerate development of the industry, the local government of Sangzhuzi District, which administers Jiangdang Township, allotted 30 million yuan in poverty alleviation funds to the company in 2017 to support the construction of its food processing project.
Since 2016, a total of 39.89 billion yuan has been invested in more than 2,900 poverty alleviation projects in Tibet, which helped lift more than 238,000 people out of poverty and benefited more than 840,000 people.
Since 2018, the Tenzin family has been a major supplier for the company and expanded his land. Many of his family members who work in other places return for harvest. He has also hired workers.
“Now I am not only my own master, but I also have money in my pocket,” said Tenzin proudly
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