In rural areas, villagers' needs for development are urgent. They want to change the status quo and to make products into money. It is worth thinking about and planning the suitable pathways for development.

At present, Qinggangping Village (in Fengdu County, Chongqing Province) has no pillar industries. Farmers are dependent on traditional agriculture such as rice, corn and potatoes. These products are mostly self-consumed and not connected to the market.

In October 2013, the project team (Carrefour Foundation and HPP China) along with the Poverty Alleviation Office organized a visit of village committee representatives and farmer representatives of the three project villages to Shizhu County to study the cultivation of honeysuckle and chili. What the villagers have seen and felt inspired their determination to develop these productions. The comparatively geographical study of the two land areas shows that the land resources of Qinggangping Village are even better than those of Shizhu County so it should be a good choice to produce chili in Qinggangping Village. The village leaders therefore began to look for opportunities to produce chili.

Thereafter, a chili producer from Zhong County planned to establish a chili processing factory in Qinggangping and the chili harvested would be processed locally. However, the producer gave up the plan in the end due to poor transportation in the village.

But this failure has not ruined the villagers’ determination.

In March 2014, the project leader Mr. Li Henian came across Wang Xiaoyang, a chili producer from Shizhu County who was looking for new chili planting base in Fengdu County. Li Henian thought this would be a good opportunity for Qinggangping village, so he introduced Song Minghua, the Village Party Secretary, and Wang Xiaoyang to each other. Mr. Wang surveyed local land resources and production conditions of Qinggangping village. By the end, Mr. Wang decided to plant 200mu of chili as a trial and promised unified purchase.

           
Some of the seeds failed to germinate due to poor weather and technical reasons during seeding. Li Henian contacted Wang Xiaoyang in time and the latter replenished extra chili seeds. In May of this year, the project team organized village representatives and village leaders of Qinggangping to visit the chili production base in Shizhu County, allowing the villagers to have firsthand experiences. Moreover, the villagers became reassured when they saw Mr. Wang was seeking an honest cooperation. Thereafter Mr. Wang visited the village frequently, communicates often with villagers and invites them to other planting areas to study and visit.

On 25th August, Qinggangping Village welcomed its first chili purchase. The villagers took the chili to the activity center. Harvest is always joyful, accompanied by profit-making. The total sale was 1800 kilograms. The villagers said that, in the same planting area, chili yields of the first harvest had been making more or less the same money as that of maize. But - there will be several more chili harvests on the same plants following the first one. The fast pace harvest has brought the villagers much confidence.

           

            

           
             This project is supported by Carrefour Foundation

Despite this initial success and the faith in producing chili, villagers reflected, however, that the trial could have been even more successful, due to late seeding and poor weather condition during planting stage. The villagers then took the initiative and requested from the project to learn more planting skills next year and help more villagers who are interested to produce chili.