Wildlife trade

Farmers in southern areas of the country had long bred bamboo rats and other species to bolster their incomes in the fight against poverty.

However, this industry took a hit in February, when a sweeping ban on trading and consuming wildlife was introduced amid concerns that such animals may have played a role in spreading the novel coronavirus to humans.

After months of deliberations, in late May, agricultural authorities decided to no longer treat the bamboo rat as an edible species.

In August, Shen Yueyue, a vice-chairwoman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the nation's top legislative body, said more than 244,000 farmers had been affected by the ban on the wildlife trade.

The value of their animals was estimated at 11.3 billion yuan and that of their breeding facilities at 7.43 billion yuan, she added, prompting the authorities to act quickly to help breeders move to other lines of work.

Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, which had a bamboo rat breeding industry valued at about 2.8 billion yuan a year, has been a front-runner in rolling out localized guidelines to compensate breeders of 12 nonconventional species.

This action was part of a broader effort to prevent bankruptcies and poverty on a large scale among the animal breeding community.

In June, Guangxi's forestry and financial departments jointly issued a guideline on ways to compensate the breeders, outlining payment standards for those raising different types of wildlife, along with ways to dispose of the animals.

The guideline stated that breeders were entitled to 180 yuan in compensation for each bamboo rat, equivalent to the market price.

It also urged local forestry authorities overseeing wildlife protection to work with poverty relief departments to ensure that poor farmers received compensation, found new jobs and did not slide back into penury.

The Poverty Relief Office in Guangxi said that by the end of July, it had allocated a total of 460,000 yuan in compensation to farmers in eight impoverished counties.

Zhang Wenming, who received compensation for 1,000 bamboo rats slaughtered in summer, quickly found work selling mangoes, silk and other local specialties through livestreaming platforms, with the aim of cashing in on the nationwide e-commerce boom.

"I thought to myself that I could not just sit there and wait to die," he said.

As the number of domestic COVID-19 cases fell in summer, flooding inundated farmland and homes in southern areas of the country, from Chongqing to Jiangxi province.

According to Xinhua News Agency, by June 9, floods had affected some 145,900 hectares of land in 11 provincial areas growing tea, chilies and other crops. Some agricultural facilities were also destroyed.