Villagers subsist on several yuan

Wang Enguang's family of six began Tuesday with a simple breakfast of rice and cabbage - leftovers from the day before.

For lunch, the dish reappeared, this time with a little pork added. At dinnertime, they finished off what remained.

The total cost of those three meals was 25 yuan ($4), which means each person's food bill was as little as 4.2 yuan that day.

This is about as good as it gets for farming families in Wang's native Haohonghua, a village about 70 km from Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province.

"Sometimes we switch cabbage for beans, but it's all the same," the 41-year-old said. "We usually eat meat only at Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and other special occasions."

According to the Chinese government, a person who earns no more than 2,300 yuan a year - 6.3 yuan a day - is classified as living below the poverty line.

Wang's family makes 11,750 yuan a year from growing corn and rice, as well as a few part-time jobs. It works out to 1,960 yuan per person.

According to village head Wang Enda, about 80 households live below the poverty line. The total population is 2,988.

He said poor families receive help from the authorities to apply for the minimum living allowance, which is 210 yuan a month. Yet such subsidies are doing little to ease the problem.

On top of the cost of food, farmers must also pay for electricity and water, and cover their children's school fees.

To save money, Wang Enguang said his family had planned to buy a pig, but scrapped the idea because of concerns over the cost of feeding it.

Wang Kedan, a 10-year-old girl, said she gets free lunches at school as part of a national project, so she spends only 3 yuan a day on breakfast and supper. Eggs and meat are a rare treat.

"Each week I can get 1 or 2 yuan in pocket money, but only when my mother is happy," she said on Tuesday.

Her parents earn less than 2,300 yuan each per year, according to village head Wang.

Guizhou is one of China's poorest provinces. About 45 percent of its 15.21 million residents live below the poverty line, largely because of poor transportation links, dwindling arable farmland and a lack of industry.

In Huishui county, which includes Haohonghua, 12,714 people are impoverished, including 1,086 who survive on less than 1,500 yuan a year.

Yang Jun, head of the Haohonghua town government, which administrates Wang Enguang's village, said that to alleviate the poverty problem, authorities plan to develop tourism and other industries. Villagers are being encouraged to plant lily orange in flat areas, and chayote in mountainous regions, he said.

Contact the writer at sujiangyuan@chinadaily.com.cn