Coming to Yellow Sheep River(3)

Why Is It Impoverished?

The distance between Lanzhou and Gulang is 220km. Gulang is the gate of Hexi Corridor where used to be the main area that produced grain in Gansu in agricultural era. People of Hexi are proud of this and have a sense of superiority to people of Hedong. But why Gulang has become a state-level impoverished county? After getting to the place, I got to know the county is separated into three parts: mountain area, desert, and plain. And farming is only suitable for the plain area. The mountain and desert area have awful natural environment. The mountain area's agricultural turnout wholly relies on the climate where the annual rainfall is less than 300mm, but the evaporation rate is 2200-2500mm. The rainfall in desert area is only 180-200mm. So lack of water is the bottleneck of agricultural development in Gulang. Yellow Sheep River is a mountain area with population of 29,906 and farm land of around 40,000 acres and 1.4 acre per that is not a small number in China, but the irrigable land is only a little above 7%, the left is dry land. Currently, grain turnout of per person is 199 kilograms. The seeds needed in a half of acre for spring wheat are 30-40 kilograms which is rather higher than that of 25-30 kilograms in area mainly produces spring wheat. Because short period-140 days of non-frost, feeding stuff for livestock is more than other places. Thus, it is hard for farmers to survive if only relying on farming. In Yellow Sheep River, there are 2,311 people living below impoverished line-----with annual income lower than 625 yuan. The number accounts for nearly 8% of the local population. There are some local enterprises which turned over 35,150,000 yuan but the income is only 610,000 yuan. Last year, the average income of per person was 1,123 yuan that was lower than half of that of the country's farmer, and the average per income of working out was 500 yuan that accounted for 46.8% the local average per income. It indicates the trend that local people have to work out of home town to make a living. Last year, 15,000 worked out, but the total number of local labor force is 15,058.

In the situation of industrialization, if people in Yellow Sheep River and places alike want to dress warmly and eat their fill, they must keep up with the tendency------become workers of industrial society and not rely on farmland.

In this situation, we can find the originality of Mr. Sayling Wen's idea of fostering IT workers, which can make places like Gulang where have no advantages of developing industry exempt the process of industrialization and directly enter information industry. And retaining local talents will not only promote the local economy but also beneficial to the social development. If it turns out success, Yellow Sheep River and Gulang will get rid of the impoverishment. Following are the questions I want to find the answers in this trip: what the internet will bring to those member schools? Is it prospective to foster IT workers and realize distant employment?

With these questions, I got to the member schools.

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