PRECIOUS LIQUID: Water gushes out of a new well in Chaicheng Village to the cheers of local people (SUN ZHIPENG)

Unlike most villagers, Dong not only plants walnut trees himself, but also purchases walnuts from all over the county and then sells them to other parts of China. Over the years, Dong has acquired a comprehensive understanding of the walnut market.

"If we take a long-term view, we can find a solution to our challenges in walnut sales," said Dong, who was active in the making of the five-year plan.

The answer has been written into the village's five-year plan. When walnut production reaches a certain scale, it says that the village will set up walnut processing plants, and produce walnut-based products. To get maximum value from the nuts, the village will eventually establish a complete walnut production chain, from planting and processing to marketing. Walnut processing plants will optimize the village's industrial structure, create jobs and boost farmers' incomes.

The plan is not purely the result of any single brain storming session. Before the discussions began, the village conducted an in-depth study. The study found that while the raw walnut market is highly competitive, walnut products such as walnut powder and walnut oil are under-produced and have good market prospects.

Neighboring villages also lack processing facilities, therefore the study found that it was feasible for Chaicheng to set up its own factory that would process walnuts from the surrounding regions.

"Once we have a processing plant, we will not have to sell walnuts at a low price," said Yuan Jianzhong, a village official. "So the five-year plan proposes that the village is going to expand the area devoted to walnut cultivation to 80 hectares," Yuan said.

The five-year plan says that Chaicheng will become the country's first model village for walnut production and, by 2015, income from the walnut industry will account for more than 60 percent of the village's total agricultural income. This is the common goal set up and agreed to by all the villagers.

People's livelihood

In addition to walnut production, the five-year plan of Chaicheng has also identified other pressing issues that the village must address including the scarcity of drinking water, insufficient arable land, poor road conditions and a lack of entertainment and fitness facilities.

Water is the village's most basic need. However, because it lies in a mountainous area with hard rock outcrops, digging wells in the village is difficult. Over the past 30 years, the villagers dug 36 wells and failed to find water on every occasion.

Given the lack of ground water, villagers have traditionally relied on water from the nearby Qingzhang River, but the supply only barely meets basic needs and does not allow for economic expansion. Solving the water problem was the top priority of the five-year plan. This summer, the village hired a professional prospecting team that used geological surveys to locate water. On July 26, water gushed out from the wells dug by the team. Villagers, old or young, swarmed to see wells that filled with over 30 cubic meters of water per hour.

The five-year plan also includes other practical measures to increase farmers' incomes and improve the quality of their lives. The objectives specified include increasing arable land by 8 hectares, dredging the Qingzhang River, consolidating and expanding the dam that protects the village during the flood season, and paving about 500 meters of roads. The plan also envisages the opening of supermarkets and construction of entertainment and fitness facilities that will uplift the quality of life in the village. Free secondary vocational education, and greater pension insurance coverage will also be introduced.

Self-rediscovery

The five-year plan of Chaicheng has also prompted villagers to carefully think about their own strengths and weaknesses. "In the process of making the plan, we also gained a new understanding of the village and discovered our own potential," Yan said.

The study conducted by Chaicheng before making its five-year plan involved experts in agriculture, forestry and poverty alleviation sent by the provincial, county and town governments. Yan said that the experts had contributed a lot to the drafting of the plan, who proposed explicit ideas on developing the economy after studying the village's soil and labor resources and climatic conditions, and instructed villagers on relevant government policies.

It was a learning process. Many villagers said that they had learned a lot from the process of making the plan. For example, their vocabulary now includes such new terms as dominant industry and economy of scale.

After noticing the change in Chaicheng, other villages in Zuoquan began to pay greater attention to making their own five-year plans, which indicates that more farmers, who used to leave their fate to the luck of a bumper grain harvest, have learned to plan their own future.