Living a dream life

Li Xiaoqin, a farmer in Chengyang village, said: "With tap water at home, we are now living a dream life."

Li's family has tap water for cooking, watering flowers, cleaning, bathing and breeding sheep.

"We didn't have the luxury of taking a bath when we had no water to drink," Li said. "Now we have the same flush toilets as the city folks have."

Many residents in the Xihaigu area used dry toilets before water availability made flush toilets possible.

Internet technologies, including data analysis and cloud computing, have changed the way of water management in Pengyang, saving half of the management staff and 1.2 million yuan, according to Xinhua.

Water, once the weakest link for the county's development, finally set villagers free to make fortune by growing more crops and raising more cattle and sheep.

Zhang Shixiang, Party head of Changcheng village, said that when local people had to fetch water with donkeys, they did not have enough water for drinking, let alone farming and livestock breeding.

"Since 2017 when the water supply network guaranteed a stable source of water in the county, the local young people who used to look for jobs in towns and cities came back, running vegetable greenhouses and breeding livestock," Zhang said.

"Water is not only for drinking but also vital for our crop farming and breeding industry. Local people are very happy with the new water supply network," said Zhang.

Local farmers have built water projects, turning a large expanse of arid land into irrigated fields.

Technicians spread dry farming, cultivation under plastic film, crop breeding and other up-to-date techniques. The traditional method of extensive cultivation has been replaced by high-efficiency and high-yielding farming mode.

Over the past decades, Xihaigu has witnessed enormous changes as China has been waging a war on poverty.

The Xihaigu area comprises nine counties and districts, which fall under the jurisdiction of three cities of Guyuan, Zhongwei and Wuzhong. Local authorities said Xihaigu saw four more counties and districts shake off poverty in March, according to Xinhua.

This means Xihaigu has only one county, which is Xiji county, to go before it is lifted out of poverty as a whole, according to local poverty alleviation and development office. Four other counties had got rid of poverty by the end of last year.

Eradicating poverty

Wang Xuejun, Xiji's Party head, said the county is working hard so as to lift all its 4,340 impoverished people out of poverty at the end of this year.

Xiji has found a more reliable, profitable sector in which the local residents can make more money as its approach to fight against poverty. Setting aside a large portion of land on which potatoes were grown, for corn－which is meant to feed the cattle－the county has started to raise cattle. Local people are getting more income from raising cattle rather than living solely on potato farming.

The evaluation of the counties and districts has been conducted at the county, city and regional levels, and they were up to the standard of being removed from the poverty list, the office said.

Water supply projects have played a pivotal role in local people's battle against poverty, making farming and breeding possible.

Zhao Wenji, a 49-year-old farmer in Pengyang, said: "We're living a dream life now with water coming out of tap in the kitchen."