A grand gathering was held to mark the country’s poverty-alleviation accomplishments in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 25 February 2021. 

Li Chunmeng, an Agricultural Economic Management graduate (class of 2009) of Jinyun Radio and TV University (RTVU), was named a “National Anti-poverty Role Model”, and was part of a group receiving the commendation of President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Li Chunmeng is currently director of the Lishui City Wild-rice Shoots Industry and Agriculture Union, and chair of the Wuyangwan Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative in Jinyun County. Since 1998, Li Chunmeng has been dedicated to planting and selling top-quality wild-rice shoots.

Perceiving the bottleneck arising from her lack of expertise in both technology and marketing, Li decided to return to school, and in September 2009 became an Agricultural Economics and Management student at Jinyun RTVU.

Two years of systematic study broadened her horizons and gave her a clearer understanding of her positioning and prospects. After graduation, Li's career grew quickly, and she established the Jinyun County Wuyangwan Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative, leading more than 100 farmers in planting over 16,000 mu of wild-rice shoots, with a demonstration base of 450 mu (1 mu equals 0.164 acre). Annual sales exceeded 20,000 tons valued at hundreds of millions of yuan. Under her guidance, the once-barren Huzhen plain became prosperous, with the wild-rice shoots growing everywhere. Li has also gained three national patents related to her work.

In 2018, she led a professional team to Nanjiang County in Sichuan Province to help farmers there grow wild-rice shoots. 65.4 mu of the shoots were successfully planted in Nanjiang that year on a trial basis, enhancing the incomes of 37 households and 150 farmers, and lifting 17 households and 64 farmers above the poverty line. By 2019, over 2,000 mu had been planted in Nanjiang County, and in 2020 this figure rose to over 3,200 mu valued at over 24 million yuan, helping more than 400 households out of poverty.

On 9 June 2020, the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council praised Li Chunmeng for her contributions to alleviating poverty, and the same year she won the "2020 Zhejiang Rural Revitalisation Leader 'Golden Bull’ " award.

It is reported that, by the end of 2019, 66,000 mu of wild-rice shoots had been planted in Jinyun County, with an output of 126,000 tons and a value of 420 million yuan. The industry as a whole was valued at 500 million yuan, and the county was first in the province in terms of area planted. It has become the largest growing region for wild-rice shoots in the country, accounting for 8% of the total area planted nationwide, with its 35,000 workers accounting for 10% of the county's workforce, and most of the county’s rural women under the age of 70 employed by it.

By Zhejiang Branch