Humana People to People Starts Their First Project in Chongqing
Sunday, 19 June 2011
With funding from Citi Foundation, the people of Baitu and Puzi county, wanzhou district in Chongqing Municipality have taken action to participate in the program of Farmers’ Club Wanzhou, improve their own abilities and develop their local communities since April of 2011. This project operates on the basis that each single farming family is a single small-scale rural business. The local farmers will be trained in sustainable agricultural techniques, agricultural business and financial skills, environmentally farming knowledge, etc.
Wanzhou District, in Chongqing Municipality, Western China, is situated in the poverty stricken Dabashan mountain area which holds 48% of the poor in the Municipality. After the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, thousands of people have been relocated to Wanzhou District. The Program will serve up to 1,165 small-scale farming enterprises (households) in 3 administrative villages(Ding Jia, Shi Jia, Jin Jia) in the townships of Baitu and Puzi in Wanzhou District. The project area is steep mountains and hills, with poor soil. Drought is common in the summer. Landslides, collapses, and mudslides are also common in the area. These conditions make farming extremely difficult. The economy of rural households is largely dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry. Both Baitu and Puzi are remote areas, with some communities as far as 100km from the center of Wanzhou. For these remote communities, access to markets is restricted because of their geographical isolation.
Due to the remoteness of the communities in these two townships, it is essential to help organize farmers collectively to gain access to markets in the urban areas of Wanzhou District as well as help increase their agricultural production in order to increase their income levels and living conditions. The farmers will be organized in “Farmers’ Clubs”, which will collectively organize transport and collectively purchase agricultural inputs (cows, rabbits, goals, seeds, sapling, bees, fry, chicken, pigs, ducks, sand and cement for building water pool, etc.) to help reduce the costs of each farmer. The farmers will be trained in modern and environmentally sustainable agricultural techniques which could be able to increase their production. They also will be trained to improve their yields and secure that their production can continue in the future without harming the environment and the livelihoods of future generations. The finance training will teach them how to do planning, budgeting, business planning, etc.
By the end of the program, leaders in the community and in the Farmers Club committees will be well trained in organizing and taking action.
Donors:
