Rain brings sunshine to village in Southwest China

Zuo Wenxue, the Party chief of Tangyue village, will attend the National People's Congress in March to share the village's progress in development with other delegates at the annual meeting in Beijing.

Once an underdeveloped place in Guizhou province, Tangyue has become a model of rural reform in Southwest China.

Tangyue, which is under the administration of Anshun city, used to be home to elderly and children as most of the working-age people had migrated to the coastal cities for jobs.

But in 2014, a rainstorm changed things there.

"The village was severely damaged by floodwater, and more than 1,000 people who had left to work elsewhere rushed back to rebuild their houses," recalls Zuo.

"That gave us the opportunity to unite the villagers to find a way to get rid of poverty."

Zuo proposed taking advantage of the central government's land-use reforms to turn the village's resources into assets.

The residents became shareholders by setting up a cooperative for agricultural products and using the land that had been left unattended.

Before the flood, more than 30 percent of the village land was unused as most people were working outside.

The cooperative has since converted about 250 hectares of land to agricultural use.