Ethiopia: How Ethiopia Can Adopt China’s Yunnan Shijing Ag-Tech and Manpeng Village’s Success

Yunnan Shijing Agriculture Technology Co., Ltd is a subsidiary company of Qicaihong Group. It mainly operates two projects in Mengla Town, Jinping County which are ruby-colored waxy corn and silage.

The production, sales and processing project of Shijing Agriculture’s characteristic agricultural products was introduced to Mengla Town in 2022, with a total investment of 110 Yuan. It covers an area of 23.82 mu and has a total building area of 15, 300 square meters. It is an integrated industrial integration project of production and sales of green food mainly focusing on the development of ruby-colored waxy corn. In 2024, it achieved an output value of 90 million Yuan.

It is a processing base. Through systematic planning and in line with local conditions, 2 production lines for ruby-colored waxy corn have been built, achieving a daily processing capacity of 20 tons. By the end of 2024, 11,000 mu of ruby-colored waxy corn has been developed, with an annual output value of 65.5 million Yuan. ]

It provided benefits to farmers. Under the leadership of the government and with the joint efforts of the company, the model of “‘enterprise + farmer + agricultural cooperative + village collective” is adopted. Order contracts are signed with village collectives, agricultural cooperatives and farmers on a quarterly basis to establish a stable interest linkage mechanism.

Many competitive products such as fresh glutinous corn, thumb corn, and sweet corn are directly sold to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and are also exported to Saudi Arabia and the United States. The cooperatives organize farmers to plan corn. The company provides seedlings to the farmers free of charge. Farmer’s handover the harvested products to the cooperatives and the company transport them to the processing factory.

It adheres to scientific planting. Two new farmers’ schools have been established. In cooperation with Honghe Technician College, a vocational farmer evaluation and training system has been established. Since 2023, a total of 14 training sessions have been completed, with more than 800 person-times of training, improving the planting technique of local farmers.

The operation of contract farming guarantees the sales of products and enhances the employment. The guaranteed purchase price is 2.5 to 3 Yuan per kilogram with two crops of corn being grown within a year. An output value of 5000 to 7,200 Yuan per mu can be achieved annually. The production line has provided job opportunities for more than 200 people, with an average monthly income of 4,200 Yuan per person.

The silage feed processing factory of Shijing Agriculture was approved for implementation in January 2024, with an investment of 32 million Yuan. It was completed and put into person in December of the same year. The corn stalks, which are the by-products of the production line, are processed into silage feed for beef cattle breeding. The annual output of the factory is 20,000 tons.

Manpeng New Village

Manpeng New Village belongs to the Jinshuihe Villagers’ Committee of Jinshuihe Town. It is located to the northwest of Jinshuihe Town, and its 35 kilometers away from the country seat. The average attitude is 500 meters away from the county seat.

The Miao ethnic minority group has been living here for generations. They moved here from Banpo Village in Tongchang Town back in 1979. Right now, there are 32 households with a total of 138 people living here. There’s one CPC Party branch in the village, and it has 9 Party members.

In recent years, the local Party organization of Manpeng New Village has made the most of the leading role in developing industry. Yang Xiaolong, the secretary of the Party branch, has set a great example. The village has come up with a new way of developing the industry, which is ” Party building plus live streaming e-commerce to sell products”.

They have carried out the “133632” industrial development plan. That means creating one incubation base for online celebrity entrepreneurs, training there business entities, boosting three undertakings worth millions of Yuan, cultivating six leaders in getting rich and helping 32 households in the village get rich together.

All these efforts have helped the villagers increase their income and become better off. They are working hard to build a beautiful Miao village where people can live comfortably and work conveniently and will attract more tourists to come.

Thanks to the connection made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Microcredit poverty Alleviation Project of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) came to Manpeng New Village in 1997. It provided support in things like industrial development, building infrastructure, and training talents and helped make the village a more livable and beautiful place.

In 2022, MoFA introduced some enterprises to the village. They launched the project to help rural minority women in Jinping inherit Miao embroidery skills and get training for employment. This project has improved local women’s abilities in things like pattern design, embroidery techniques, clothing cutting, and live streaming e-commerce.

Thorough the model of ” Party building +live streaming base + supply chain of agricultural products + online celebrities promoting products”, they have helped the villagers sell local products like Miao embroidery, ethnic costumes, honey and fruits. This has opened up more ways for the villagers to get rich. In 2024, the income from live streaming sales was over 28.3 million Yuan, and it helped 269 local farmer households increase their income by 3.91 million Yuan.

Baoshaizhai Village is subordinate to the Malutang Villagers’ Committee of Jinhe Town. It is located in a mountainous area and is 9 kilometers away from Jinhe Town. The village has a total area of 3.33 square kilometers, with an altitude of 1,530 meters. The annual precipitation is 2,460 millimeters making it suitable for growing crops such as rice and corn. The Yi ethnic group has lived here for generations. There are 222 households with a total population of 1,023 people in the whole village.