Terraced fields



plowing and spreading out fertilizer



fields



reservoir, irrigation channel



Sugarcane



orchard



rice



processing grain



pressing oil



students, physical exercise



??? hot




Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Film presents Ying Hsi Production Brigade in South China's Fukien Province. This brigade has more than a thousand households and 4,300 mu of farmland. With no access to irrigation before, the soil on these hillocks was very poor. The area used to suffer from drought in nine years out of ten.

Ever since the people's commune was established, however, Ying Hsi production brigade started on a basic construction programme for developing agriculture.

The commune members have already levelled 17 hillocks. They have also cleared and linked two thousand plots of arable land to form five big, high-yielding cultivation areas, which are safe from both the threat of drought and water logging.

A big reservoir was built in the neighbourhood by the people's government in 1983. Commune members of Ying Hsi brigade have dug a network of irrigation channels to lead the water to their fields.

In the past, half the area's land depended on 'Heaven' for their meagre crops. Today, over 90 percent of the land is covered by an efficient system of irrigation.

In the past, this place was a stretch of sandy waste where even wild grass refused to grow. With water, it has become a vast sugarcane field yielding 10 thousand catties per mu.

In the past, this place was a litter of pebbles and stones where wild rabbits made their haunts. It is now 600 mu fruit orchard.

Last year, the commune members of Ying Hsi production brigade reaped a fine rice harvest. Ying Hsi brigade had never produced enough grain before, with per-mu yield never reaching 500 catties. The establishment of the People's commune has transformed nature and brought scientific ways of cultivation. Per mu yield has gone up to 1,000 catties.

The people's government has provided the brigade with electricity and Ying Hsi brigade now runs its own mill to process the grain.

The brigade has its own oil pressing plant too, and it's side-line productions of this kind which add to the income of the commune members.

Ying Hsi production brigade is running two primary schools on its own. With help and assistance from the state, the members of this production brigade have not only successfully transformed the face of nature. They have found the way to bringing prosperity and abundance for a poor district as their's.