For Some Chinese Peasants, Business Is Really Booming, Thanks to Rural Reforms

DINGXI, China —  Most people in these parts earn the equivalent of $57 a year, but Yan Lide brings in more than $1,000 making plow heads.

Zhang Rang, who lives next door, makes $540 selling sofas. Down the street, Chen Duo earns $270 making noodles.

Yan, Zhang and Chen are beneficiaries of China’s rural reforms, which since 1980 have allowed rural industries and permitted “special households” to have sideline enterprises of their own.

“Things are 10 times as good today as 10 years ago,” said Yan, a father of two daughters.

Eats Nearly Every Day Now

Since going into the plow business in 1981, he has built a new home and bought a television and says he eats meat nearly every day.

“I have everything I’ll ever need.”

Yan remembered earning less than 100 yuan ($27) annually for making plows under the old commune system. He also recalled the 1960s when he survived on potatoes and wild plants, and went years without eating meat.

Zhang said that in 1974, when a hailstorm destroyed the wheat crop, many people starved.

“I too was hungry.”

Life is still a struggle, nevertheless, here in Dingxi County in Gansu Province, a dusty, water-parched area of central-west China.

Most Continue to Farm

Like 2.29 million of the 2.39 million people in Dingxi County, Yan and his neighbors continue to farm, on plots of about an acre. In good years, they harvest just enough to feed their families.

“But there’s a saying here that for every 10 years there is nine years of drought,” said Wang Xingbang, the county’s Agriculture Committee director.

This year, in Neiguanying, Yan’s village of 30,000, planting was delayed half a month by lack of rain and hail destroyed early crops.

The provincial and national government supply Dingxi with about 30 million yuan ($8.1 million) a year to keep people fed and clothed, build irrigation systems and develop new income sources.

Township-Run Industries

In Neiguanying, 1,000 people have found jobs in 10 township-run industries, while many more have set up sideline jobs, often with local loans.

More than 200 people, mostly women, work at a plastic bag factory that through May this year earned profits of $18,900. The workers, who earn $19 a month, own part of the operation and will receive a year-end bonus of about $55 each if business stays good.

Ye Tianyu, director of a 130-employee factory that makes glass fiber to cover oil-drilling equipment, said he works day and night at his job, but earns twice as much as the $16 he formerly received as a local official.

By the end of 1985, about 70 million out of the 370 million working people in China’s countryside were engaged in non-agricultural pursuits, and the government hopes to increase that to 100 million by 1995.

Serious Growing Pains

In 1986 the gross output for rural enterprises topped $89 billion, for the first time exceeding the value of agriculture production.

The rural industries have had serious growing pains--problems with getting raw materials, power shortages, pollution, worker safety and poor quality.

The villagers, despite their new sources of income, are also a long way from escaping poverty. The new homes proudly displayed by Yan and his neighbors are one-room buildings with concrete or brick floors and lit by a single light bulb.

There is no plumbing and one large bed suffices for the whole family.

Noodle maker Chen, who moved into his home last year, said it is twice the size of his old dwelling, but the 10-by-20-foot room must house a family of seven, including two elderly parents.