“In the 1960s, when Zhou Fabei moved to
Xishuangbanna prefecture, a tropical corner of southwest China’s Yunnan
province, he quickly landed a job building roads for new rubber plantations.
The timing of his move from the populous central province of Hunan couldn’t
have been better for him: China’s post-revolutionary government had just
started slashing forests and promoting rubber cultivation by state-run firms.
By the 1980s, the government was offering incentives to the prefecture’s poor farmers — many of them from ethnic-minority groups — to plant rubber on their homesteads as a way to escape poverty. Further subsidies were introduced over the next two decades, and China’s 2001 entry to the World Trade Organization granted its farmers better access to global commodities markets. As global rubber prices have soared to meet rising demand for tires and other rubber-based consumer products, many Xishuangbanna rubber farmers have catapulted into the middle class. Farmers in villages near Jinhong, the prefecture capital, said recently that they earn four times what they would for growing rice.” By Mike Ives
By the 1980s, the government was offering incentives to the prefecture’s poor farmers — many of them from ethnic-minority groups — to plant rubber on their homesteads as a way to escape poverty. Further subsidies were introduced over the next two decades, and China’s 2001 entry to the World Trade Organization granted its farmers better access to global commodities markets. As global rubber prices have soared to meet rising demand for tires and other rubber-based consumer products, many Xishuangbanna rubber farmers have catapulted into the middle class. Farmers in villages near Jinhong, the prefecture capital, said recently that they earn four times what they would for growing rice.” By Mike Ives
No comments:
Post a Comment