The preface | Shigatse: Exploring Cooperation Under Mount Everest (Issue 2, 2022)

Author: Editorial Board of China Farmers Cooperative

In September 2021, as a member of the Working Group for the Improvement of the Standardization of the Tibet Farmers' and Herdsmen's Cooperatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the reporter of this magazine visited some Xigaze City cooperatives. Although located on the frontier of the plateau, Xigaze City cooperatives have grown from scratch, flourished, and their vitality has become increasingly apparent, with the number of 5,320 by the end of 2021, accounting for nearly half of the total number of autonomous regions, and has played a prominent role in industrial development, poverty alleviation, social governance, and strengthening borders and strengthening Xinjiang, which can be called a beautiful business card for cooperation between farmers and herdsmen in Tibet. According to the survey visit, we believe that the Xigaze City Cooperative has the following development characteristics:

The three-level party committees grasp cooperation and gather strong impetus. The party committees at the municipal, county, and township levels have set up a leading group for the development of professional cooperatives for farmers and herdsmen, with the leaders of the organization departments as the group leaders, the leaders in charge of the government as the deputy leaders, and the principal responsible persons of the departments of agriculture and rural areas, market supervision, taxation, auditing, finance, economics and information, development and reform, tourism development, commerce, human resources and social security, and agricultural investment and urban investment institutions as members to regularly study the work of cooperatives; set up a leading group office in the organization department to take the lead in coordinating specific work; and establish a team of counselors in accordance with the "632" principle, that is, 6 counselors at the municipal level The county level is equipped with more than 3 counselors, and the township is equipped with 2 counselors to guide the service cooperative, forming a work pattern of implementation at all levels and joint management. When we were investigating in Bailang County, we met a township party secretary, who was very familiar with the farmers' professional cooperative law and cooperative knowledge, and mainly grasped the work of cooperatives, which effectively promoted the development of cooperatives in the township.

Five hundred percent coverage, bursting with powerful driving force. With farmers and herdsmen as the main body, the city's cooperatives have achieved 5 "100%" coverage of poverty alleviation households, marginal households, members of the "two committees" of villages, peasant and herdsmen party members, and disabled mass groups, and promoted the development of Everest characteristic industries such as Everest cattle and sheep, Yadong salmon, and Tibetan chickens, so as to attract the attention of farmers and herdsmen to increase their income and become rich with visible benefits and tangible benefits. Taking Nukang Village, Riso Township, Gyantse County, as an example, under the leadership of the "two committees" of the village, the "1+4" development pattern has been constructed in the form of financial support, collective investment in the village, and equity participation of all villagers: the establishment of construction companies and the contracting of projects abroad; the establishment of agricultural machinery cooperatives to liberate the villagers' labor force; the establishment of labor cooperatives to organize villagers to work in an orderly manner; the establishment of wool processing cooperatives to achieve local employment of women in the village; the establishment of cattle cooperatives to develop modern dairy farming. The income of villagers has increased year by year, and the per capita income will exceed 32,000 yuan in 2021, embarking on the road of happiness.

Seek development according to local conditions and stimulate strong source power. The first is to respect the will of the masses and engage in cooperation. There are 48 villagers in Pengcang Village, Bailang County, the cooperative led by the village party branch has absorbed 37 villagers, and the other 11 villagers have established another cooperative under the leadership of returning college students, and both cooperatives have received government support, "two flowers bloom and one branch each", driving Pengcang Village to become the first "ten thousand yuan village" in Bailang County. The second is to expand the industry based on resource endowments. In addition to The characteristic industries of Mount Everest, the cooperative has also vigorously expanded new industries such as handicrafts, tourism, and ecology. Nielamu County Borong Township Silong Village Xifeng Mountaineering Yak Consignment Herdsmen Professional Cooperative uses the advantages of the local landscape to develop eco-tourism, provide guides and yak consignment services for mountaineering tourists, and achieve a net income of more than 630,000 yuan in 2021. The third is to improve the main body of the industrial chain. In accordance with the model of "company + base + cooperative + farmer and herdsman", Xigaze Everest Agricultural Investment Baiyacheng Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Products Processing Co., Ltd. invested 330 million yuan to build a core base and 13 regional bases, and radiation drove 783 breeding cooperatives and more than 300,000 farmers and herdsmen, leading the rapid development of the local cattle and sheep industry.

Judging from the survey, after more than 10 years of development, the Xigaze Cooperative has made remarkable achievements in terms of quantity, structure and efficiency, and has become the backbone force that drives farmers and herdsmen to organically integrate with modern agriculture. In the new stage of development, the focus of the "three rural" work has shifted to comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, and it is recommended that the Xigaze City Cooperative further strengthen the standardization construction, play the "Snowy Plateau" and "Pure Land Tibet" cards, vigorously develop processing, circulation, e-commerce, etc., so that Xigaze's famous and excellent products can sell well throughout the country and even the world, and achieve high-quality development.

Source: China Farmers Cooperative, Issue 2, 2022