In the Shertara Farm in the Hulunbuir Grassland of Inner Mongolia, several generations of farmers have worked hard to start a business, and now the production conditions have been greatly improved, and life has become more and more substantial and convenient.
In 1959, at the age of 18, I came to the Shertara ranch and became a milkman. Every day at 4 a.m., I get up, walk into the cow house, and start the day's work.
In my spare time, my co-workers and I also had to go to the Hailar River to carry wicker to build a house and a big mud house, which was very hard.
At that time, the conditions on the ranch were harsh, and when I got married, I could only live in a half-plot house built on a half-hill slope, and the water I ate was pulled up from the river by horse-drawn carriage. The road is a dirt road, a grassland road, not even a gravel road, there are very few vehicles, and you can only borrow rubber wheelers or horse-drawn carriages everywhere to pull grain at the field.
Guarding the natural water resources of the Hailar River, why do you "hold the golden rice bowl and ask for rice to eat"? Water is the foundation of agriculture, if you can build a canal to divert the water to the mountains, why can't the Shertara grassland become a big granary?
In 1979, the former Ministry of Agriculture built the "Grassland Mechanization Experimental Station" in the Shertara cattle breeding farm, and the Shertara people seized the opportunity to blow the clarion call for farmland water conservancy construction on the semi-arid grassland.
With the sound of rumbling machines, a 43-meter-wide and 1500-meter-long diversion canal extends from the banks of the Hailar River to the bottom of the mountain roots, and the more than 10-kilometer-long water transmission canal stretches forward, and the 35-meter-long yangshui station stands quietly on the hillside. In the event of a drought, dozens of sprinkler irrigation machines stretch out their long arms, rotate the sprinklers, and the crystalline water droplets that rise and fall in the air moisturize the vast Shertara grassland.
Since the 1980s, the 16,000 mu of grain, oil and green feed base of The Shelterara Ranch has become a fertile field for drought and flood protection. In this semi-arid grassland, 35,000 mu of improved grassland is stable and high yield, and 80,000 mu of grass kulun is full of vitality...
In 2014, The Shertara Ranch actively sought the support of national water conservancy funds, strengthened the construction of farmland water conservancy, renovated the original main canal, increased the length of the canal, added a water lifting station, and used 8 water pipelines to divert the water of the Hailar River to the hill in two directions.
On June 9, 2017, with the sound of firecrackers and cheers, The new main canal of Sertara, which has been under construction for two years, was officially opened.
The concrete slope wall of more than 20 meters wide and 7 meters high and the new water transmission trunk canal of 19.5 kilometers long allow the turquoise Hailar River to flow to more than 70,000 mu of arable land, effectively alleviating the serious impact of drought on agricultural production. The area of water-saving sprinkler irrigation in the whole farmland has increased from the original 32,000 mu to more than 200,000 mu, accounting for more than 80% of the total cultivated land area of the whole field, and "relying on the sky to eat" has become history.
While the water lifeline moistens the Shertara steppe, the workers' lives are getting better and better. More than 50 buildings have been built on the farm, named "Shertara Town", and more than 1,000 employees have moved into Happy Homes.
At present, cement roads have been built on all streets of the farm, and two rows of street lights have been erected next to the colored brick sidewalks on both sides of Central Street, and the lights are lit up at night. Everyone happily said: "Shertara is getting more and more city-flavored!" "The couples upstairs in my house who work in the field department and the production team drive their cars to work, and the young people who raise hundreds of cows in the five teams drive back and forth every day.
In the depths of the Hulunbuir Grassland, the life of the farmers is getting sweeter and sweeter, and the laughter is getting more and more cheerful.
(The author is deputy director of the Customs Work Committee of Shertara Farm and Pasture of Inner Mongolia Hulunbuir Agricultural Reclamation Group)
Source: People's Daily