Rags to Riches – Story of the Kubuqi Farmers

Poverty often goes hand-in-hand with a hostile environment. However, in the Kubuqi Desert (the seventh largest in China), a miracle has happened. After intensive scientific management, one third of this vast stretch of infertile land has been reclaimed and is now blanketed with green and criss-crossed with highways. Farmers and herders have moved into new communities, some of them even starting homestays. Boarding schools have been built, meaning that going to school is no longer just a dream for local children.

Dreaming of Reaching out

During spring in Kubuqi, swathes of green are interwoven with expanses of yellow sand. Against the glow of the sunset, what you often see here is not the nostalgic silhouette of camels but the flash of off-road vehicles driving by.

The desertification control efforts in Kubuqi have given local farmers more employment opportunities. Farmer Mengke Dalai even started a tourism business, which has significantly increased his income.

“In the past, going to the county seat took more than a day. We had to cross the desert and the Yellow River. Now we can reach it in an hour or so,” said 38-year-old local Mongolian herder, Mengke Dalai. Roads used to be something he could only dream about.

“Twenty-two years ago, appendicitis struck my father. To undergo an operation in Wuyuan’s county town of Bayan Nur City, my elder brother had to help him cross the vast desert and the Yellow River. They were away for 12 days, leaving me anxious at home. I climbed up a nearby sand dune every day just to try and see something far away. I often dreamed of a road leading to the outside world!” When telling this story he always has to choke back the tears.

Local people had long hoped to see a thoroughfare connecting them to the outside world, but when entrepreneur Wang Wenbiao first proposed building a highway across the desert interior, Mengke Dalai and other farmers couldn’t quite believe it would actually happen. “Back then I was only 17, still a student,” Dalai said. “I didn’t believe it was possible to build a highway in the desert, so I went to the construction site every day after school. Years after the road was finished, I still sometimes thought it was a dream.” Dalai remembers the whole thing as if it were yesterday.

The highway has not only given local people easier access to the outside world, but also brought them wealth. With support from the local government, Elion Resources Group has invested RMB 1.28 billion since 1996 in building five desert highways – a total of 343 km. This laid the foundation for future road-building projects and shaped a daring, hardworking and tenacious attitude towards taming the desert.

In 1996, in an effort to restore the local ecological system, the local government relocated dispersed herders in the desert to a new community built using a corporate investment of more than RMB 10 million. Moving into his new residence in this community put an end to Mengke Dalai’s nomadic lifestyle with no electricity or running water. He started a hostel and, together with five other farmers, bought 13 SUVs, ventured into desert tourism and saw his business boom. His annual income has rocketed from RMB 10,000 to over RMB 300,000. “This formerly desolate and barren land has been transformed into a field of fortune. Now the youngsters, who once left the desert and sought a living elsewhere, have come back. We’ll never have to suffer hardship again!” Mengke said, with an air of assurance.