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 An Inner Mongolian herdsman grazes on the grassland. After the central government introduced policies to protect the grasslands, many herders were relocated. Mu Qian / China Daily |
From herdsman to farmer, a journey in Inner Mongolia by Xinhua writers Lu Qiuping and Zhang Yunlong
Hagenna lowered his head slowly on being asked whether he missed his hometown where he herded his sheep.
"It's where I was born. Of course, I miss it," says the 51-year-old Mongolian.Hagenna used to live as a herdsman behind the Erlang Mountain in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which is less than 200 km from the China-Mongolia border.
Erlang divides the Wulatehou Banner into two parts, and the part behind the mountain has become increasingly barren due to poor roads and minimal infrastructure.
"We have no electricity there, and many families have to use windmills, which can hardly power a TV," says Hagenna.
Also, the grasslands can barely support the herds that once grazed there.
"I had about 200 sheep then, and sometimes 300 if the rainfall was heavy. But I had to buy feed 160 km away in front of the mountain at a cost of almost 2 yuan per kg, if the grass was too scarce due to a lack of rain," he says.
In fact, the annual rainfall practically determined Hagenna's income, from several thousand yuan per year to nothing.
"The grassland was good in the late 1960s, and sheep cost only 60 cents per jin (500 g)," he says.
In the 1980s, herders received their own grassland to graze on, and the price of sheep skyrocketed to almost 400 yuan per sheep.
According to statistics from the Wulatehou Banner Government, the number of livestock in 1999 was 601,000, a surge of 312 percent compared to 1973, which caused the grasslands to decline by over 50 percent.
In 2002 the central government introduced policies to protect and recover the grasslands, many herders like Hagenna were relocated to preserve the ecological environment.
Hagenna moved from his hometown in 2007 to Bayantala Gacha, where he was granted 25 mu (1.67 hectares) of farmland.
"Farming is much harder than herding for me, and I didn't know how to farm in the beginning," he says.
He received training organized free of charge by his village and county, and he learned from scratch.
He now grows sunflowers, corn, and also some grass to feed his 20 sheep, making a stable income of more than 10,000 yuan ($1,476) per year.
As the Wulatehou Banner Government granted him 20,000 yuan for a settlement and another 30,000 yuan per person as a life subsidy, he can now live in a 72-sq-m house with a yard to grow vegetables.
Also, the subsidy for his five-member family was more than enough for him to pay 19,000 yuan for his house.
In addition, his wife also receives nearly 600 yuan per month as a pension, which all men over 60 and women over 50 of the banner, or county, are entitled to.
Bayantala Gacha was built in 2006 as a new village for the purpose of ecological migration. More than 100 households from three former gachas behind the mountain have moved there, says Xu Fuhu, secretary of the gacha committee of the Communist Party of China.
Hagenna is among the 450,000 people who were transferred over the past 10 years, 100,000 of them were herders, said Ji Dacai, deputy chief of the region's bureau of agriculture and animal husbandry.
The government spent more than 2 billion yuan to help them relocate and learn a new livelihood, including housing subsidies, pensions for seniors, free training for the young, free education for children, and other assistance, she said.
The payments for the herders' settlements would be further increased, Liu Xinle, deputy governor of Inner Mongolia said, during a news conference in Beijing in early July.
Although the new village seems attractive, Hagenna still keeps his hometown - Qiandamen Gacha - in mind.
Half of his family still live there, either waiting or refusing to move.
"They often visit us. Some of them envy our new life and are eager to move here, but some still insist on staying," says Hagenna.
"For better or for worse, it's our hometown after all," he adds.
Xu said the government intended to continue the migration, but would not force unwilling residents to move.
"If the ecology improves, I still want to move back where I was born, but I won't put any pressure on my children to be like me," Hagenna says.
Hagenna has two sons and both of them are working in town.
"Being a herdsmen is dull. They don't like it," he says.
His younger son trained to repair appliances, in a program organized by the local government.
Xu said the village and county governments often organize job training to help the young find jobs, and the salaries of drivers, cooks and repairmen were much higher than herdsmen or farmers.
