Can the magic of “Rural Revival” enchant Maogong, a small village in China?
On 11th to 14th October, the first “Rural Product Innovation and Folk Art Revival Forum” and “Food for Thought Autumn 2018” were held in Maogong(茅貢), Guizhou. Over a hundred domestic and international frontiers and practitioners in sustainable development and rural revitalisation areas participated in the Forum and interacted with local villagers.
Design Venture Forward(“DVF”,「上海晋暂」), the host of the events, is an investment management innovator focuses on strategic design, business consulting and funding channels. By designing and building a sustainable ecological-economic micro system for small-size farming and craftsmen communities, DVF drives the development of unique, high-quality, high value-added organic farm products and crafts products.
DVF’s founder Louise Lai plans to organise the Forum annually wherein all relevant professionals and practitioners can gather together and explore how to integrate various resources to empower rural villagers and help them export the values created by them to the market. The ultimate goal is to find out an effective and efficient path to discover and export the indigenous value and enhance the developments of villages from China, to Asia.
Why the Forum was held in Maogong?
Maogong is located in the southeast of Guizhou, China. Yi people(侗族人) are its native inhabitants. The ecological environment of Maogong preserves a large number of architectural and intangible cultural heritages of the Yi people, coupled with the characteristic terraced landscape and fertile agricultural products. As the mountain roads are rugged and far from China’s first-tier cities, there are not many tourists disturb the tribute, leaving Maogong the beauty of mother nature.
However, Maogong is facing a big challenge same as other rural areas in southeastern Yunnan. Its economy is underdeveloped and its people’s economic income is low. In 2017, Maogong’s per capita annual income was 8,159 yuan, which was only one-third of China’s national per capita disposable income in the same year (data from the National Bureau of Statistics website).
The unique ecological environment and geographic condition of Maogong are doomed to be unable to take the road of industrialisation development. Mountains divide the paddy fields into patchy blocks. Development of large-scale mechanised farms seems to be unrealistic.
Project of Creative Village(創意鄉村)
The local government of Maogong has long started to propose a practical platform for building a “creative village” and try to find a suitable way to revitalise the tribe.
Since 2015, the town government has invited several outstanding teams of architects to carry out space renovation of staff dormitories and old granaries. One of the successful transformations is the Grain Art Centre(糧庫藝術中心).
The Grain Art Centre was originally a granary in the 50s . Mr. Liang Jingyu(梁井宇), the architect of the building, retained the wooden structure of the granary and dividing it into several exhibition halls. In the small exhibition hall, a large number of wooden structure corridors are used to connect the entire public space. The middle of the site is covered with gravel. Occasionally, villagers sit at the door and chat.
How to make the renovation become sustainable?
After a series of high-quality renovations, facilities such as the Grain Depot Art Centre, Xiangchuang Apartment(鄉創公寓), Service Center(服务中心), Book House(書屋), and Exhibition Hall have made Maogong famous. However, due to the lack of comprehensive planning and professional management, the Creative Village Project still cannot assist Maogong become economically sustainable.
SZC and DVF met with impact investment institutions in Maogong during the Forum and together established a joint venture company-Goods For People (“GFP”,「仁民善作」).
GFP is dedicated to revitalising rural resources and small-scale peasant economy. We have set up a local team, Smart Village, to operate and manage Maogong’s economic micro-system and urban-rural multi-conversation community.
Maogong’s Economic Micro-system
To activate the small-scale commodity market in Maogong, we encourage the villagers and small cooperatives to put their production process and products to the GFP online platform. They will then be rewarded with points. The number of points determines the “exposure” of the products, and the voucher can be redeemed for the purchase of equipment and raw materials in the platform.
GFP uses blockchain technology to record transactions and product information, making the database untamperable. The open and transparent transactions and traceable product sources can resolve problems caused by information asymmetry and fraud, promoting fair trade, and building trust between parties.
Smart Village is creating a small farm incubation mechanism to introduce various empowerment training and agricultural related services. The ultimate goal is to assist the habitants to incubate their products.
Urban and rural pluralistic dialogue community
After a strict selection of products, GFP platform will sell agricultural products to cities. Urban consumers can purchase rural products not only to trace the producers and production processes, but also to track the safety and reliability of each link. Furthermore, the distributed accounting method ensures the authenticity of data and promotes the establishment of a trust mechanism between urban and rural areas.
Furthermore, GFP will make full use of the existing Maogong Center as a hotel and dining space, and guide the villagers to develop their own ecological environment, field farms, Yi culture and other tourism products. GFP will act as a bridge between Maogong villagers and the urban community to avoid problems of over-development due to large-scale unrestricted tourism, and encourage villagers to recognise their regional ethnic culture. The small village will find what sparks a light in them.
