In a fluent and engaging style, the author describes how he and his colleagues at the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) have carried out various rural poverty alleviation projects, as well as his thoughts on sustainable development paths for poor rural areas. In the past 20 years, the author has taken root in the poor villages, and paved a path of rural development that is market-oriented and based on the collaboration with villagers after going through ups and downs.

The first part covers the attempts to pool resources and boost the development of poor villages in the Daliang Mountains of Sichuan Province. Although the projects have brought about a lot of changes, the main goal of fixing the poverty trap remains unachieved. The stories of the Daliang Mountain illustrates that besides financial and material assistance, industrial projects must be introduced to achieve sustainable development of the rural area. This requires a market-oriented approach of the village’s microeconomy and revolution of the traditional smallholder farmer system. The second part covers the story of Minle County in Gansu Province. Based on the lessons learned from the Daliang Mountain projects, CFPA continued the exploration on industrialization and the industry-farmer collaboration model in Minle County. Having recognized the importance of villagers’ cooperation and the value of a modern enterprise system, CFPA developed a cooperative-based, industry-oriented model for the Minle County project, albeit its eventual failure. The story of Minle County suggests that village leaders play a significant role in changing the villagers’ perceptions of development. The third part tells the story of Ganda Village in Qinghai Province. With the help of the Foundation, the Ganda Farmer Cooperation rolled out market-oriented industrial projects led by village leaders and succeeded in transforming Ganda from a poor village where villagers could not afford yogurt to a rich village. Since 2013, CFPA has been working to apply this approach to other villages. Taking into consideration the local resource endowment, CFPA launched the Baimei Village Accommodation Project and the Philanthropic Commune (Shanpin Gongshe) Project. The Baimei project turns villagers’ old houses into rural B&B boutique hotels catering to city escapers. The Shanpin project makes high-quality agricultural products available to end consumers via e-commerce platforms. The Baimei project has been rolled out in over 20 villages whilst the Shanpin project will cover 100 villages by end of this year.

Based on the above practices of CFPA, this book clearly responds to the problems and dilemmas existing in rural development today and provides relevant solutions, which is of great significance to both practical and research work on rural revitalization.