Poverty Alleviation of All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives

　　【Overview】 In 2011, in accordance with the requirements of the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)” and the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development, giving full play the system and industry’s advantages, taking new rural modern circulating service network project construction and the department projects of agricultural development, supply and marketing cooperatives as the carrier, All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC) speeded up the construction of rural circulation network, vigorously developed farmers’ specialized cooperatives and socialized agricultural services, and played an important role in boosting the economic and social development of poor areas, stimulating the circulation between urban and rural areas and serving farmers’ production and lives.

　　【Construction of rural distribution network】 In 2011, the central government allocated 1 billion Yuan of special funds for the “modern circulation network project of new countryside” to support supply and marketing cooperatives build agricultural means of production and consumer goods service network, agricultural product modern purchase and marketing network and renewable resource recycling network. In the allocation of special funds, the ACFSMC increased support for impoverished regions and gave priority to consumer goods shops, agricultural means stores, farmers market, multi-service centers for rural communities and warehousing and logistics facilities to ensure the normal supply of agricultural raw materials and consumer goods and build a commodity circulation network with low cost and high perating efficiency. It mainly supported the projects urgently needed by the contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties and the key counties for national poverty alleviation, and gave priority to the key projects that can improve local production condition and living standards.

　　【Poverty alleviation by specialized cooperatives】Focusing on the competitive industries with local characteristics in poor areas, the supply and marketing cooperatives in various regions put much effort on initiating farmers’ cooperatives to improve the level of organization and marketization of the farmers in impoverished areas. Taking farmers’ cooperatives as the carrier, it increased financial support for poor rural households and set up a close interest relationship with the poor. As of the end of 2011, the supply and marketing cooperatives had organized the establishment of 66,000 farmers’ cooperatives, with an increase of 12,000 over the previous year, of which 14,000 cooperatives passed the organic, green and pollution-free certification and more than 10,000 had registered trademarks to provide information technology, brand marketing, processing, storage and transportation service for more than 10 million rural households that joined in the cooperatives. Meanwhile, the ACFSMC further increased support for the development of farmers’ cooperatives in poverty-stricken areas. In 2011, it arranged 23.19 million Yuan of department project funds for supply and marketing cooperatives engaged in comprehensive agricultural development, which encouraged the issuance of 10.38 million Yuan of local matching funds and supported the planting, breeding bases and agricultural product processing and circulating projects of farmers’ cooperatives and leading enterprises in 40 key counties for national poverty alleviation.

　　【Rural integrated services】 The supply and marketing cooperatives in various regions actively launched comprehensive service centers. While strengthening agricultural supply, commodity sales, purchase of farm produce and other operating functions, local supply and marketing cooperatives actively developed public welfare services, set up farmers’ reading rooms, clinics, police offices, insurance service offices, postal offices and telecommunications business offices jointly with the relevant departments and units to meet the diversified needs of the masses in poor areas. As of the end of 2011, the system had set up a total of 238,000 village-level integrated service stations, with an increase of 18,000 over the previous year, almost covering 1/3 of the administrative villages in China. The integrated service stations have become important means for local party committees and governments to promote the equalization of urban and rural public services and strengthen and innovate social management.

　　【Industrialization-based poverty alleviation】 The supply and marketing cooperatives in various regions actively participated in the economic construction of poverty-stricken areas. Based on the natural conditions of poor areas, they led the poor to develop green, pollution-free agricultural industry with local characteristics and practice the industrialization mode of "leading enterprises + professional cooperatives or bases + poor households". Through the construction of standardized production bases, they led the poor to develop natural, safe, healthy and brand farm produce to improve the product quality and increase the income of the poor. As of the end of 2011, more than 2000 agricultural industrialization leading enterprises of the governments at all levels in the system led 1450 rural households to generate income of 44.48 billion Yuan; set up 21,000 commodity bases, connected with 10.165 million rural households and helped the farmers achieve revenue of 66.26 billion Yuan.

　　【Poverty alleviation by science, technology and education】 With a total of 94 vocational colleges in the field and nearly 300,000 students, local supply and marketing cooperatives strengthened the secondary vocational education and short-term skills trainings for junior and high middle school graduates from needy families, actively held practical technical trainings of poor farmers, increased employment channels for labors of impoverished regions and supported employment transfer of the labors in poverty-stricken areas. Meanwhile, supply and marketing cooperatives at all levels gave full play to their scientific and technological advantages, used 8 subordinate research institutes and 33,000 crops hospitals to provide technical training, promotion, application and information consulting services for the farmers. In 2011, it set up scientific experiment and demonstration field of 205,000 hectares and carry out soil testing and fertilization for 2.14 million hectares of farmland; provided technical trainings and information consultation service for 14.142 million people; provided seeds and seedlings worth 12.61 billion Yuan and issued 18.687 million copies of scientific and technical materials.

　　【Project support of the subordinates】 The supply and marketing cooperatives in various regions guided and coordinated the enterprises directly under their administration, the trade associations, research institutes and agricultural industrialization leading enterprises to invest in project construction of contiguous poor areas, develop and utilize local advantageous resources and participate in local economic and social construction. As of the end of 2011, for example, China Federation of Supply and Marketing Group Limited, which is affiliated to the ACFSMC, supported to construct 13 large projects in the key counties with a total investment of 5.69 billion Yuan to promote the economic development and employments of the poor in local areas, covering Haixi Prefecture of Qinghai, Haiyuan County of Ningxia, Huai’an County of Hebei, Wutai County of Shanxi and Shimen County of Hunan, etc.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】  In 2011, the ACFSMC adopted a variety of measures to steadily promote the anti-poverty work in Qianshan County of Anhui.

1. The leaders attached great importance to the poverty alleviation work. The relevant functional departments were serious and responsible for the work and the sending cadres worked hard. The ACFSMC successively sent two bureau cadres and five division cadres to carry out field research in the county. The sending cadres did everything to promote the anti-poverty work and played a role as a bridge in the work.

2. Continue to support the development of mushroom industry. In 2011, the ACFSMC allocated 100,000 Yuan for the fixed-point poverty alleviation, continued to support the construction of edible mushroom industrial bases through issuing rewards to substitute subsidies, cultivate deep processing leading enterprises and brands, and made full use of the advantageous resources of its Kunming Edible Mushroom Research Institute and Chinese Edible Fungi Association to provide technical support, industrial support and supply and marketing information for local mushroom industry. After years of special poverty alleviation, based on production of mushroom and agarics, an edible mushroom production pattern covering production of oyster mushroom, lucid ganoderma, needle mushroom and bamboo fungus has been formed in Qianshan County of Anhui Province, which encouraged more than 3,000 rural households of 14 towns to engaged in mushroom production. The annual production scale reached 9.5 million and the output value exceeded 76 million Yuan. Qianshan County Party Committee and County Government has listed edible mushroom industry as one of the six local featured agricultural industries.

3. Support the development of farmers’ cooperatives. Relying on local supply and marketing cooperatives, the ACFSMC supported them to set up farmers’ cooperatives and take the cooperatives as an important means to organize and guide farmers, strengthen the interest linkage with farmers and support the anti-poverty work. In 2011, the ACFSMC allocated 100,000 Yuan of fixed-point poverty relief funds to support the development of Sanbing Ecological Agricultural Cooperatives in Qianshan County to expand the scale, enhance the leading capacity and guide the establishment of a closer interest relationship with the poor. After the establishment of the cooperatives, it led 680 rural households in three villages to engage in wild duck breeding and the annual breeding capacity was 200,000 Sanbing wild ducks with green head and the annual processing capacity if 150,000 ducks. The products were processed, packaged and sold by Sanbing Zhaojia Green Farm Produce Co., Ltd, forming the industrialization operating mode of "leading enterprises + professional cooperatives + farmers". The cooperatives recorded annual sales revenue of 4.08 million Yuan and the income level of the farmers involved was enhanced.