The journey from Dalang Town in Dongguan to Beixiang Town in Lechang City, Shaoguan, stretches roughly 330 kilometers by road. In 2025, aid official Wang Fei arrived in Beixiang carrying Dalang's commitment, fully immersing himself in the rural landscape surrounded by the mountains of northern Guangdong. This land carries a profound revolutionary history—in November 1934, the Central Red Army passed through Lechang during the Long March, with troops enduring a difficult crossing of Dawang Mountain before seizing positions at Jiufeng Mountain to hold off pursuers, leaving behind enduring stories of mutual support between soldiers and local villagers.

The spirit of serving the people, embodied by revolutionary forebears, now lives on through the new era's town-assistance initiatives. Dongguan-Shaoguan paired assistance is a major provincial strategy for balanced regional growth, operating through municipal coordination and town-street partnerships. Dalang and Beixiang represent a complementary union—one an industrial hub with complete supply chains, the other a northern Guangdong farming community famous for its water chestnuts. This partnership goes beyond capital and project transfers—it serves as an in-depth experiment in determining how to genuinely enrich farmers.

As head of the Dongguan assistance team stationed in Beixiang, Wang Fei has led his colleagues to conduct thorough research by visiting households throughout the area. Walking through fields and farmland, he identified the core challenges facing Beixiang's growth: local agricultural products are of exceptional quality, yet most are sold at the primary-product stage, lacking processing capacity and added value. Farmers possess excellent goods but struggle to secure fair prices.

"We've used industrial assistance to establish several rural revitalization workshops, with cumulative investment reaching approximately 6.9 million yuan. The goal is to connect with and benefit farmers, secure their incomes, and further elevate Beixiang's industrial development—that's the foundation of this assistance," Wang Fei told reporters. "The greatest sense of achievement comes from the fact that, after years of effort, local officials and residents treat us like family, often inviting us to their homes for meals and tea. The genuine human connections are the most precious gain and give us even greater confidence to stay rooted in mountain-area assistance."

Securing the Baseline: Village Workshops Ignite Industrial Growth

Upon arriving in Beixiang, the first task for Wang Fei and his team was establishing a dynamic monitoring mechanism to prevent relapse into poverty. "This work may seem meticulous and fragmented, but it's the fundamental safeguard for rural revitalization," Wang Fei explained. "We've made anti-poverty relapse monitoring our top priority, conducting routine tracking of households that have emerged from poverty, with particular focus on household income to ensure it meets relevant standards."

While preventing poverty relapse forms the baseline, industrial development is the real foundation. Beixiang boasts a water chestnut cultivation history spanning several hundred years. In 1997, Beixiang was designated a "Shaoguan Premium High-Yield Water Chestnut Demonstration Zone"—one of 13 agricultural demonstration zones in Shaoguan—which dramatically boosted local water chestnut farming. Furthermore, Beixiang water chestnuts are a national geographical indication product, and the town is also the primary production area for Zhangxi taro, likewise nationally protected.

Through surveys and research, Wang Fei's team found that Beixiang's water chestnuts, taro, figs, and other produce were of superior grade but had long been sold as raw commodities with thin margins, leaving villagers facing abundant harvests yet stagnant incomes. Leveraging Beixiang's agricultural strengths, the assistance team made rural revitalization processing workshops their strategic focus, securing 6.9 million yuan in aid funds for facility construction and equipment purchases. Four workshops have been established—including water chestnut and taro processing plus cured meat facilities in Huangcun Village, and fig and golden plum processing in Maoping Village, with both sites now operational.

A vegetable oil pressing workshop in Xincun Village is under accelerated construction and expected to begin production later this year, capable of processing peanut oil, tea seed oil, and other plant-based oils. Wang Fei noted that the workshops operate a guaranteed minimum-purchase-price mechanism, protecting local farmers' produce sales and cushioning against market price volatility. Each workshop employs 20–30 nearby villagers, and staggered produce seasons allow flexible worker rotation across facilities. During summer and winter breaks, the workshops also hire returning college students, helping them earn tuition and living expenses while easing family burdens.

Additionally, each workshop generates tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan annually in rent for village collectives, supplemented by year-end dividends from town-level collective companies—together steadily strengthening village economies and creating a virtuous cycle of farmer income growth, collective efficiency gains, and industrial value appreciation.

The water chestnut and taro processing workshop, operational since late February 2025, has already sold 100,000 jin online. The processing chain has boosted water chestnut prices from 2 yuan per jin to nearly 16 yuan. The cured meat facility features transparent viewing corridors and an e-commerce live-streaming studio, promoting the "Beixiang Cured Meat" brand into Pearl River Delta households through assistance channels; output has surpassed 100 tons since launch. Maoping Village's agricultural processing plant, in three months of trial operations, has purchased over 60,000 jin of figs for dried fig and juice production, with guaranteed purchase prices of 3 yuan per jin and average procurement at 3.5 yuan—at least 1 yuan per jin above previous market rates. This is projected to directly boost income for over 70 surrounding fruit-growing households by approximately 1.2 million yuan this year.

The plant also pioneers an integrated "solar-plus-processing" model, with rooftop photovoltaic panels generating 450,000 kWh annually—covering 100% of the facility's electricity needs. Combined solar power generation and rental income contribute 100,000–150,000 yuan per year to village collective revenue.

To open sales channels, Wang Fei and his team have actively pursued market expansion through government promotion, outward investment attraction, and tapping Dongguan resources to broaden order pipelines. Processed items—cured meats, water chestnut and taro products, and dried figs—primarily supply the Pearl River Delta market, supplemented by local consumption, leveraging e-commerce platforms, community group buying, and cold-chain delivery. With current production of premium local produce limited, demand is outstripping supply. The assistance team is coordinating with the town agricultural office on soil improvement, pest control, farmland consolidation, and variety optimization to plan capacity expansion. "Capacity growth cannot be achieved overnight—it requires sustained effort," Wang Fei said. Production increases are part of a long-term strategy; once capacity is fully realized, the team will pursue nationwide market expansion.

Collaborative Development: Blending Agriculture, Culture, and Tourism to Unlock Mountain Potential

Inside Beixiang's town-center community hall, a lychee tree crafted from Dalang's signature wool knitting catches the eye, while landmark exhibition spaces display Beixiang water chestnuts, taro, and other specialty products. A reading room glows warmly, and the coffee area offers a cozy retreat. This space, converted from an idle factory building, was realized through over 2 million yuan in assistance funds, matched by 2 million yuan from local typical-town construction funds, and operates through introduced social capital. It serves as both a cultural leisure hub for residents and a showcase window for Beixiang's agricultural specialties.

Wang Fei emphasized that paired assistance is not simple financial "transfusion" but rather the gathering of diverse forces to activate rural endogenous development momentum. Using the town-center hall as an anchor, Beixiang has taken the lead in implementing a whole-town operational model, linking cultural-tourism sites like the coffee camp and strawberry pavilion into an integrated network, promoting coordinated development across primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.

Despite positive industrial momentum, Wang Fei recognizes that while Beixiang water chestnuts and Lechang Zhangxi taro carry national geographical indication credentials, their brand IP remains underdeveloped, raw product value stays low, and supply-chain gaps persist as key obstacles to income growth. "We aim to elevate agricultural product value through brand IP development, driving farmer prosperity," he said. As an agricultural county, Lechang still needs to strengthen its industrial chains and clusters to advance toward higher-quality development.

Regarding his philosophy of assistance work, Wang Fei's goal remains straightforward and resolute: "Assistance work must center on connecting with, benefiting, and enriching farmers. The fundamental purpose is to drive local industrial development, raise farmer incomes, and strengthen village collectives and town-level companies. If we can genuinely fill villagers' pockets and help them achieve prosperous lives, that's a truly valuable achievement."

The assistance team works closely with local officials and village cadres on coordinated implementation. "Coordination between both sides has been smooth, and local cadres have offered substantial support. We invest our human, material, and financial resources with sincerity, and in human relations, genuine effort is what matters most," Wang Fei noted. Guided by the principle of "exchanging sincerity for sincerity," all parties are steadily translating assistance projects into tangible results on the ground in Beixiang.

Reflecting on his assistance journey, Wang Fei speaks of both formidable challenges and invaluable rewards. Facing initial skepticism, the team chose to remain grounded at the grassroots, dispelling doubts through concrete project outcomes. Through persistent dedication, local officials and residents now regard the team as their own, often inviting them for tea and casual conversation—"this recognition fills me with immense pride," he said.