About 60 percent of the village's 133.3 ha of farmland has beenleased and re-divided into larger patches for industrial production of mushrooms, flowers, grapes or livestock.

Yan Deyou, once the head of Xiaogang Village, is now cultivating a 12 ha vineyard, which he said "can bring a profit 10times that of grain farming."

He added: "This year, about 40 hectares of the leased farmland in my village have been pooled to grow grapes, which has facilitated centralized management and made it easy to fertilize, water and remove pests from the land."

In 2007, the per capita annual income in Xiaogang exceeded the national rural average of 4,140 yuan to reach 6,000 yuan.

"That could not happen if each family was still working on its small piece of land separately," said Shen Hao, the party chief ofthe Xiaogang Village.

"I really hope there will be some factories in the village," Chen Hongqing, Yan's wife, said as she lay in bed watching TV at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. "Then I could get something to do, and my son could work nearby."

China has taken measures to benefit farmers, including abolishing the agricultural tax and some school fees, and expanding health-care cooperatives and pension schemes. Even so, farmers are still poor.

Nothing to do

Apart from growing produce, many villagers in Xiaogang have nothing to do but watch TV, play mahjong and chat. That's especially true of those in their late 40s and 50s. Because of the world financial crisis, it's even hard for young villagers to finda job in the city, Chen said.

"We need investment, technology, talent and so on to open factories, which keep us busy," she said.

Taking finance as an example, a report by the prestigious Tsinghua University showed that China has at least 120 million farmers who need loans, but only 60 percent are able to obtain financing. The situation is worse for small rural enterprises, with only 50 percent able to get the loans they need.

Farmers have long been neglected by China's banks because of the higher risks of lending to them, compounded by greater operating costs and lower returns.

Traditionally, rural borrowers could only obtain loans, usually of less than 5,000 yuan, from the Postal Savings Bank and local cooperatives. As for talent, many young graduates want to work in coastal cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Fortunately, China is realizing the problems and taking measures to channel more investment and educated talent into rural areas.

"Xiaogang is like most villages in central China: poor infrastructure, far from big cities, villagers lacking a proper education," said a rural expert Zuo Yuliang.

Xiaogang has a better chance to get investment and talent sinceit's famous as the land reform's starter. Whether other villages will have similar success is still unclear.

(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2008)