Village in E China's Jiangsu intensifies Party-building efforts to advance rural revitalization

With six Communist Party of China (CPC) branches, Jiangxiang village in east China's Jiangsu Province is becoming a model for rural revitalization through Party building.

Photo shows villas for villagers in Jiangxiang village, Zhitang township, Changshu city, east China's Jiangsu Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Wenquan)

Located in Zhitang township, Changshu city, the village counts 101 Party members among 900 residents.

By highlighting the role of the community-level Party organization and the exemplary vanguard role of Party members, the CPC committee of Jiangxiang village has intensified Party-building efforts and led villagers on a journey of rural revitalization by developing agriculture, industry and tourism, as well as a sound ecology over the past years.

Jiangxiang village has advanced common prosperity. In 2022, the total output value of the village reached 1 billion yuan ($144.2 million) and the villagers’ per capita disposable income stood at 62,500 yuan, according to Chang Desheng, an official of Jiangxiang village.

The village's net worth and circulating capital reached 366 million yuan and 140 million yuan, respectively, Chang said.

Photo shows Chang Desheng, an official of Jiangxiang village in east China's Jiangsu Province, in the village history museum of Jiangxiang. (People's Daily Online/Yang Wenquan)

"Each household in our village lives in a villa covering 220 square meters," the official said, adding that the village sold each villa, which cost more than 300,000 yuan to build, to villagers at 128,000 yuan.

The village has promoted organic farming. Duckweed that contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium has been planted to improve soil fertility in organic paddy fields.

A villager shows soil from an organic paddy field in Jiangxiang village, east China's Jiangsu Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Wenquan)

In the village, farmers plant one season of rice each year and raise geese in paddy fields in winter and spring. These geese help weed the paddy fields and their manure supplements soil fertility. Pumps connecting nearby livestock farms channel the manure to the fields.

Jiangxiang village has built 1,200 mu (80 hectares) of organic paddy fields, which are contracted by 13 major grain growers who achieve fully mechanized rice planting and harvesting, with rice output per mu of between 400 and 450 kilograms. The economic benefits of each mu of farmland in the village stood at about 2,500 yuan in 2022.

Jiangxiang village's elderly care was listed as one of the initial examples of China's national demonstration of elder-friendly communities.

Photo shows a scale model of Jiangxiang village, east China's Jiangsu Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Wenquan)

In recent years, the village has invested nearly 40 million yuan to construct a nursing home with a planned capacity of 260 beds and turned it into a regional elderly care service center that offers integrated elderly care and medical services in Zhitang town, Chang said.

The village has also built 158 senior citizens apartments of a three-star standard. Elderly men and women who are or above 58 and 55 years old, respectively, receive a pension of 600 yuan to 2,300 yuan a month.

The village also provides full coverage of five major types of insurance--old age insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance, and maternity insurance. It promotes the traditional virtue of respecting the elderly and built public facilities, such as a theater and a library, to enrich villagers' intellectual and cultural lives.

Thanks to the village's efforts to put people first and leverage the pioneering spirit, it has been granted nearly 100 national honorary titles, such as the national model of rural modernization.