China News Service, Lanzhou, September 14 (Dai Wenchang, Xiangba Cairang) 60,000 acres of lilies have gone out of the mountains and into the sea, and 237 professional talents have gone to the mountains to pass on their skills... This "out" and "in" period is the deep love between the mountains and the sea for the paired assistance between Lintao County, Dingxi City, Gansu Province, and Shibei District, Qingdao City. Since 2021, Lintao County has solved problems in small areas of people's livelihood such as small industries, small jobs, and small classrooms, promoted cooperation between the east and the west with practical things, and deeply transformed from external "blood transfusion" to endogenous "blood production".
On September 13, workers were processing lilies in the Huasheng Farmers' Professional Cooperative in Lintao County.
Change starts with a lily. Lintao sweet lily has excellent quality, but it has long been troubled by insufficient storage facilities and limited export channels, making it difficult to achieve a good harvest. Relying on the cooperative consumption assistance mechanism between the East and the West, the two places regularly organize Qingdao supermarkets and purchasers to visit the production areas, set up Lintao agricultural specialty product exhibition and sales counters in Shibei District, and implement fresh-keeping warehousing facility improvement projects to help farmers realize the staggered launch of fresh lilies.
At present, the lily planting area in Lintao County reaches 60,000 acres, of which the lily planting area in Zhongpu Town of the county exceeds 29,000 acres, with an annual output value exceeding 200 million yuan. "In the past, when the harvest season came, we would all sell together, and the price could not determine the price. Now that the sales are stable, there is still cold storage, and planting is more confident." Li Huijun, a grower in Jiangjiashan Village, Zhongpu Town, knows this deeply.
Lily broke out of the mountain, and Kuan Fen also wanted to go out. Lintao has a deep folk processing tradition of potato vermicelli, but small workshops are decentralized, export costs are high, and the market radius is small. To this end, the local government has invested 3 million yuan in cooperative funds to build an origin warehouse that integrates warehousing, sorting, packaging, and direct express delivery. It has settled in more than 50 agricultural enterprises and served more than 390 e-commerce entities. The cumulative number of orders has exceeded 2 million, sales have exceeded 80 million yuan, and online sales have increased by more than 30% annually.
Duan Cheng, director of the Lintao County Agricultural and Rural Affairs Bureau, said that the county's production warehouses have integrated scattered production capacity and smoothed export channels, truly allowing Lintao's local specialty industries to open up the eastern market.
The industry has a way out, and people are looking forward to "medical treatment" for their livelihood. Since the paired assistance, Shibei District has sent a total of 237 professionals in fields such as support medicine, education, and agricultural technology to serve in Tao. They not only provide consultations and attend classes, but also focus on department construction, system improvement, and local talent cultivation.
Qingdao medical experts have taught local doctors through surgical teaching, case studies, professional training and other methods. Common diseases and common surgeries that used to require treatment in Lanzhou can now be performed in the county's hospitals. Ma Tingzhen, director of the Lintao County People's Hospital, said that they not only perform consultations and operations, but also focus on building mechanisms and leading teams, leaving behind medical technology and service systems that cannot be taken away, effectively reducing the burden of people seeking medical treatment in other places.
The problem of medical treatment has been solved, and education classes are also connected to the "cloud". Currently, 20 primary and secondary schools in Shibei District have established long-term assistance relationships with corresponding schools in Lintao County, bringing advanced teaching concepts and characteristic classrooms to campuses on both sides of the Tao River. Wei Xiaowei, deputy director of the Lintao County Education Bureau, said that the Shanhai collaboration has broken down regional education barriers, high-quality teachers and teaching concepts are interoperable, and continues to promote the integration and advancement of teaching concepts in the two places.
Employment is another source of security brought by cooperation. The two places have set up two-way labor workstations, held multiple special job fairs for east-west collaboration every year, promoted order-based skills training, implemented transportation and job stabilization subsidies, and adopted a "point-to-point" transfer model to guide labor to Qingdao and surrounding areas for stable employment.
Since the pairing, the two places have exported a total of 16,000 labor services through collaborative channels, making migrant work a reliable way for farmers to increase their income. Zhai Jiaxin, a villager in Xiajie Village, Balipu Town, Lintao County, said that the government helps connect formal enterprises and provides policy subsidies, making it more practical to work outside the home and the family income is stable.
Now in Lintao County, the cooperation between the east and the west has given rise to sales of mountain products, boosted industry, made medical treatment less difficult, connected classes to the cloud, and given confidence in employment. The deep love between mountains and seas is turning into a real warmth in people's livelihood on both sides of the Tao River.
