“Farmer Scientist” contributes to poverty alleviation

He has multiple job titles: scientist, former headmaster of the Yunnan Agricultural University, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as well as a famed plant pathologist. And his name is Zhu Youyong.

At the age of 60, Zhu left his campus and laboratory, and went to live in an impoverished village named Gaozhibao deep in he mountains of Yunnan’s Lancang autonomous prefecture of the Lahu minority. Most residents there were ethnic villagers who had not received any forms of education and could barely speak Mandarin. Their average family income was as low as 1,000 yuan, which means a single person could not even get 100 yuan per month! Thus, Zhou decided to visit poor families and start teaching them how to grow potatoes and pseudo-ginseng - a common Chinese herb plant deemed of having high medicinal and economic values. In the meantime, he trained over 1,000 agricultural technicians who are still working on improving local people’s livelihood.

Ma Zhengfa is one of his very first trainees in Lancang. Last year in 2018, He grown 10 mu (rough 0.7 hectare) of potatoes. Several months later, these potatoes allowed him to gain a total amount 70,000 yuan! Ma said if he expands his potato field to 20 mu, an extra income of 30,000 to 40,000 will be brought to him next year. In Gaozhibao, the number of households cultivating potatoes has exceed 30 at present.  

Among a handful of technical patents that Zhu owns, there is one which can help effectively control and reduce plant diseases without using pesticide. Once, an enterprise, showing much interest to this technology, hoped to buy its patent from Zhu. He not only rejected their proposition, but allowed all farmers to use the technology for free.

Now, after four years - dozens of villagers in Gaozhibao have shacked off poverty under the help of Zhu Yoyong. And among them, he is known as the “farmer scientist”. On December 2, a title of “Role Model of the Times” was conferred to him by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee. 

Trans-editing by Wang Jingzhong