Diamond Model Based Analysis on Cooperation between of Poverty Alleviation and Emission Reduction in Agricultural Counties: A Case Study of Huoshan County in Anhui Province

Yuan LI

School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China

Abstract 2020 is the year of decisive stage for building a well-off society in an all-round way. On the winter vacation of 2020, we went to Huoshan County, Anhui Province, an old revolutionary area, and conducted a social survey for nearly a month. Through interviews, on-site observations, and access to materials, we clearly found that the local party committee and government actively responded to the call of the state, practiced the "two mountains" theory, turned a poor and backward agricultural county into a national ecologically civilized and well-off county, and realized the coordinated progress of poverty alleviation and energy conservation and emission reduction. Starting from the government policies and rural facts of Huoshan County, a national ecological county, and using Porter’s "Diamond Model", our team used Huoshan County’s environmental advantages and disadvantages, economic prosperity and decline as comparison conditions, and analyzed external factors such as factor conditions, opportunities, related and supporting industries, government forces, etc., to come up with pertinent recommendations for the development of agricultural county-level characteristic industries.

Key words "Two mountains" theory, Diamond model, Poverty alleviation and getting rich, Energy conservation and emission reduction

1 Introduction

2020 is the year of decisive stage for building a well-off society in an all-round way. On the winter vacation of 2020, we went to Huoshan County, Anhui Province, an old revolutionary area, and conducted a social survey for nearly a month. Through interviews, on-site observations, and access to materials, we clearly found that the local party committee and government actively responded to the call of the state, practiced the "two mountains" theory, turned a poor and backward agricultural county into a national ecologically civilized and well-off county, and realized the coordinated progress of poverty alleviation and energy conservation and emission reduction.

Huoshan County is located in the western area of Anhui Province, in the hinterland of the Dabie Mountains and the upper reaches of Pi River, the first-level tributary of the Huai River. Its landform is characterized by "seven mountains, one water, one field, one road and manor". Reservoirs such as the Foziling, Mozitan, and Bailianyan, which are the Huai River Management Project in New China, were built here. Huoshan County is a typical mountainous area, reservoir area, and old revolutionary county. It was often referred to as "poor mountain and bad water". Since the middle and late 1950s, especially after the large-scale steel smelting in 1958, and the destruction of forests and land reclamation and deforestation during the 1960s and 1970s, the forest coverage area of Huoshan County has been greatly reduced, soil erosion has intensified and the ecological environment has been severely damaged. According to the censuses in 1983 and 1992, more than half of the timber stock in mountain farms was lost. The soil erosion area in Huoshan County was as high as 1 592 km, accounting for 78% of the county’s total area. The types and numbers of animals and plants are also decreasing, and the ecological environment is obviously out of balance. In the 1990s, due to the disorder and blindness of Huoshan County’s industrial development, environmental pollution in the Dabie Mountains deteriorated seriously.

In order to fully protect the good ecological environment in the county and build a strong driving force for the sustainable economic and social development, the Party Committee and Government of Huoshan County reviewed the current situation and proceeded from a strategic and overall perspective, and established the concept of ecological development and the development strategy of "ecological establishment of the county" in 2001. The strategy states that it is necessary to obtain golden mountains and silver mountains, but also protect green mountains and clear waters, and prevent pollution entering Huoshan County. In the past 20 years, Huoshan County has made "ecological establishment of a county" as the top of the "five-county strategies", and has continuously increased publicity to improve the awareness of environmental protection of cadres and people, and do a good job in energy conservation and emission reduction; changed the achievement performance assessment concept, adjusted the content of the performance assessment of leading cadres, not only on economic growth, but establishing a target system, assessment method, reward and punishment mechanism that reflects the requirements of ecological civilization; vigorously implemented the "Natural Forest Protection Project", and actively implemented management measures such as returning farmland to forests, closing hills for afforestation, and planting trees.

Now, Huoshan County is not only a well-known hometown of medicinal materials, tea, bamboo, sericulture, water and electricity, but also has been rated as a national civilized county, a national tourism demonstration zone, and a national cultural advanced county, national advanced county for scientific and technological progress, advantageous area for agricultural products with Chinese characteristics, national advanced county for grassroots traditional Chinese medicine work, national comprehensive demonstration county for e-commerce in rural areas, national advanced county for safe construction, and won the national comprehensive governance award "Chang’an Cup" twice.

Huoshan County has changed from a mountainous agricultural county with "poor mountains and bad waters" to a well-known national ecological county after nearly 20 years of reform and exploration. It has realized the road of poverty alleviation and prosperity, energy conservation and emission reduction. Therefore, as a sample, it is worth our learning and research. In the process of research, we tried to use the "Diamond Model" of American economist Michael Porter as analytical tools to explore how Huoshan County bases itself on the actual situation of the county, implements the strategy of "ecologically establishing the county", does a good job of energy conservation and emission reduction while promoting rapid economic development, and has built a beautiful ecology of "no pollution entering Huoshan" and "clear water and green mountains everywhere".

2 Analysis framework

The Diamond Model, also known as the Diamond Theory and the Theory of National Advantage, was proposed by Michael Porter in 1990, a well-known strategic management scientist at Harvard Business School, to analyze how a country forms an overall advantage and accordingly has strong competitiveness in the world. The central idea of Theory of National Advantage is is that the root of the rise and fall of a country lies in whether it has won an advantage in international competition. It emphasizes not only that all industries and products of a country participate in international competition, but also that the country’s overall competitive advantage must be formed. For a country to obtain the competitive advantage, the key lies in the integration of four basic elements (factors of production, conditions of demand, relevant supporting industries and corporate strategies, structure and horizontal competition) and two auxiliary elements (government power and opportunities).

Porter pointed out that the conditions of production factors include human resources, natural resources, knowledge resources, capital resources, infrastructure,

etc

.; demand conditions refer to the nature of domestic demand for products or services in a certain industry. Porter put great emphasis on the role of domestic demand in stimulating and enhancing the country’s competitive advantage. Having internationally competitive suppliers and related domestic auxiliary industries is the third condition for an industry to obtain a national competitive advantage. It refers to whether there are internationally competitive suppliers and related auxiliary industries in the country. The fourth condition in Porter’s model that promotes a country’s competitive advantage is the strategy, structure and competitive situation of domestic enterprises. Porter’s basic idea is that the probability of a country’s international success in a certain industry is the combined result of the country’s resources and talents, demand conditions, related and auxiliary industries, and strategy, structure, and competitive enterprises. In addition to the above four basic elements, the two auxiliary elements are government power and opportunity. The influence of government power is huge. Opportunity is exogenous and will have an impact on the four basic elements (Fig.1).

Fig.1 Basic elements and auxiliary elements of the Porter model

3 Cooperative progress

For a long time, the Party Committee and Government of Huoshan County in Anhui Province has adhered to the "two-mountain theory" as the guide. Since the establishment of the "ecological county" strategy in 2001, the local leadership team has insisted on not relaxing the strategy of green hills and plotting a blueprint to the end, taking a steady road to green industry, developing the ecological economy, solidly promoting the supply-side structural reform and the pace of "adjusting the structure, transforming the mode, and promoting the upgrade", to guide enterprises to eliminate outdated production capacity, and reduce pollution, while actively implementing the addition and multiplication of green development, vigorously developing a circular economy and a low-carbon economy. It implements green industry, ecological agriculture, energy-saving service industry, establish county-wide green industry system, to realize joint and cooperative social and economic development and environmental protection, and realize "Phoenix Nirvana".

3.1 Implementing the plan and scientifically building the ecological spatial pattern

In order to ensure the sustainable development of production factors, Huoshan County Party Committee and government supports economic development, and strictly protects the ecological environment, implements functional zone planning, and scientifically builds a spatial pattern. According to the

National

Plan

for

Development

Priority

Zones

, Huoshan County, located in the Dabie Mountains, is a national key ecological function zone. In compliance with this plan and the 1 090 kmecological protection red line determined by Anhui Provincial Government for Huoshan County, the Huoshan County Government has scientifically and rationally formulated the

Ecological

Civilization

Construction

Plan

of

Huoshan

County

, to strengthen the overall design and organizational leadership of the ecological civilization construction, it established and improved the ecological space planning system, and scientifically determined the protection zones and development control limits of production, living, and ecological spaces for drinking water source areas and livestock and poultry restricted areas, to promote the optimization of the layout of industries, and it firmly adhered to the ecological red line, strictly controlled project access, and formulated a negative list for access. It clearly specified that the 10 townships upstream of the reservoir shall not build any industrial projects, and the industrial concentration areas established by the 6 townships and two parks outside the mountain must strictly implement the "environmental assessment", the system of first approval for environmental protection and the "three prohibitions."

3.2 Adjusting measures to local conditions and promoting the cluster development of leading ecological agricultural industry clusters

Huoshan County actively builds four major agricultural production clusters based on the current situations of the county’s agricultural structure adjustment and resource conditions. (i) Vegetable planting, special aquatic products, livestock and poultry farming clusters in villages and towns in Waifan area; (ii) township forest, tea, and herb production clusters in Lishan area, (iii) aquatic products and camellia production clusters in reservoir area, (iv) Dashageng modern agricultural demonstration park, leisure agriculture and rural tourism area characteristic agricultural production cluster area. In addition, the support of "one valley, one belt, one ridge and one resrvoir" is significant, and the construction of key projects such as "one garden, three fields and one center", Tianxia Zeyu Dendrobium deep processing, and the lobster trading center have been accelerated. In Huoshan County, the number of newly built and rebuilt agricultural industrialization base is up to 3 466.67 ha, the increase of various agricultural business entities is up to 140, and 38 newly certified "three kinds of agricultural products and one indication". Taipingfan Dendrobium Park was approved as a provincial agricultural science and technology park. These make Huoshan County become a key agricultural product processing cultivation county in Anhui Province. Huoshan Huangda Tea became a geographical indication certification mark and was awarded as the Hometown of Chinese Yellow Tea; Huoshan Dendrobium and Huoshan Chizhi appeared at World Horticultural Exposition (Beijing). Huoshan County also takes the county economic development zone as the core, radiates and drives the Hengshan Agricultural Products Processing Park and Zhufo’an Bamboo Processing Park, vigorously develops the deep processing of agricultural products, and promotes the development of leading industrial clusters. Hengshan Agricultural Products Processing Park actively builds Yingjia Food Brewing Industrial Park and was named "Professional Town of Industrial Clusters in Anhui Province". In accordance with the overall design framework of "one core area, three clusters", Zhufo’an Bamboo Processing Park promotes industrial agglomeration and builds a corridor for the bamboo processing industry. It was approved as a "professional town for the bamboo industry cluster in Anhui Province" and has initially developed into a distribution center for processing bamboo products in north of the lower reaches of the Changjiang River, radiating the east China. Only in 2016, the agricultural product processing output value of Huoshan County reached 14.633 billion yuan, and the ratio of agricultural product processing output value to agricultural output value reached more than 4∶1, ranking first in Anhui Province. The industrialized operation of agriculture has led to an increase in the average income of farmers by 3 100 yuan.

3.3 Making overall plan to ensure the harmonious and stable development of the environment in the reservoir area

In order to effectively protect the water ecology, Huoshan County has invested 510 million yuan of ecological and environmental protection funds to implement the ecological protection of the Dabie mountain water environment and the ecological environmental protection of the Foziling reservoir group, focusing on the removal of reservoir cages. The people in the reservoir area have carried out cage aquaculture in the reservoir for a long time, which has seriously damaged the ecological environment and drinking water safety. In order to completely ban cage aquaculture, Huoshan County has made overall arrangements, meticulous deployment, and multi-party survey to ensure that it does its best to ensure that it has issued the

Opinions

on

Supporting

the

Conversion

of

Households

in

the

Demolition

of

Foziling

and

Mozitan

Reservoir

Cages

(

Reservoir

Bay

). It takes farmers as the main body, orients towards market, and takes special agriculture as the focus. It implements township guidance, departmental linkages, and policy support. It takes three years to support demolished households to implement the transition to production, stabilize income levels, and gradually realize the masses living and working in peace and contentment, and realizing the stability and safety of the reservoir area forever. Huoshan County annually raises no less than 9 million yuan of funds to strengthen credit support and improve production and living conditions in the reservoir area by "transforming reservoir to stocks", "transforming reservoir to subcontracting", "transforming reservoir to planting", "transforming reservoir to industries" and "transforming reservoir to tourism", to effectively solve the long-term livelihood problems of cage farmers. At present, the Foziling and Mozitan Reservoirs have implemented artificial breeding and ecological breeding to maximize the protection of water sources and ensure the harmonious and stable development of the reservoir area. In order to strengthen the comprehensive management of the reservoir areas, Huoshan County took the lead in setting up the Law Enforcement Bureau for Reservoir Area Water Comprehensive Management in Anhui Province, which specializes in the supervision of the ecological environment of the reservoir areas, and completely solves the problem of "many departments managing the reservoir" in the past, realizing the objective of "lucid waters and green mountains".

3.4 Implementing up-and-down linkage mechanism to promote the implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction

The Party Committee and Government of Huoshan County actively promotes implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction work, and vigorously builds township infrastructure, promotes the revolution of rural toilets, garbage sorting, energy saving and environmental protection. The beautification of the living environment and the increase of income have been fully recognized and accepted positively by the people in the reservoir area. The support of people in the reservoir area for energy conservation and emission reduction and the gradual development of related behaviors have made the ecological civilization awareness of energy conservation, emission reduction, and environmental protection gradually penetrate into the hearts of the people, which become a deep foundation and inexhaustible power for promoting the sustainable development of Huoshan’s green ecological industry system.

4 Experience implications

4.1 Adhering to protecting the ecology and promoting the transformation of the industrial structure

As a national key ecological function zone, Huoshan County attaches great importance to the ecological priority, green development, and continuous improvement of environmental quality. Huoshan County always takes clean water and green mountains as the foundation of development, adheres to the strategy of ecological protection, vigorously implements industrial structure adjustment and transformation and upgrading, intensifies ecological protection and comprehensive environmental management, and coordinates the promotion of landscape, forest, field and lake system management, and takes strict system to build an ecological barrier. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Huoshan County has taken the lead in Anhui Province in implementing the reform of the comprehensive water law enforcement system in the county-level reservoir area, which has effectively solved the problems of multi-department management of water. Huoshan County has achieved full coverage of the "forest chief scheme" and "river chief system", the collective forest tenure reform has been rated as the national advanced, and the land saving and intensive use has been commended by the State Council. In addition, Huoshan County revised the ecological civilization construction demonstration county plan, implemented the Foziling reservoir group ecological protection project and the Dabie Mountain water environment ecological compensation project, and vigorously promoted the rectification of prominent environmental problems, fully restricted the urban fireworks and firecrackers, constructed and put into operation the county industrial sewage treatment plant and the central heating facilities in the development zone. It continued carrying out 17 cases of environmental violations including special rectification of sand and gravel mining, coal-fired boilers, non-point source pollution,

etc

., and effectively solve a number of problems affecting the quality of the atmosphere and water environment, realizing blue sky, green mountain, and clean water of Huoshan County. Huoshan County also issued the

Negative

List

for

Access

of

Industries

, which successively refused to approve 152 non-compliant environmental access projects, shut down 31 pollution-related enterprises, banned 106 river sand mining and stone processing, and invested 500 million yuan to carry out comprehensive management of the reservoir area, dismantled 28 000 cages, and destroy 2 100 ships. At present, the water quality of the Fuziling Reservoir has been maintained above the Class II standard for surface water all year round, and Huoshan County has been rated as excellent water source for "China’s Good Water". Tourism has gradually become an important driving force for the transformation of Huoshan County’s industrial structure and the transformation of development modes. With the continuous and in-depth advancement of the "ecological county" strategy, Huoshan County has initially formed an industrial system that is compatible with the effective use of resources and ecological environmental protection, and has implemented the scientific development concept with practical actions. Today, Huoshan has realized blue sky, green mountains, and clean waters.

4.2 Insisting on deepening reforms and enhancing sustainable development capabilities

Huoshan County insists on comprehensively deepening reforms and opening up development, making every effort to promote reform, opening up, and innovation-driven projects, effectively stimulating market vitality, and making full use of technology to drive the development of agricultural industrial clusters. Taking the county’s characteristic tea industry as an example, the stock, production and utilization efficiency of tea resources are of utmost importance. Once the resources are exhausted, Huoshan County will face tremendous pressure. Huoshan County has realized earlier that only by getting rid of resource dependence and carrying out technological innovation, can it obtain the source of sustainable development. Technological innovation can not only increase product output and quality, but also extend the product industry chain and increase the degree of industrial integration. In order to get rid of resource dependence, the Huoshan tea industry cluster actively explores the way to revitalize tea with science and technology, and actively cooperates with scientific research institutes such as Anhui Tea Research Institute and Anhui Agricultural University to continuously research and develop deep processing of tea, extend the agricultural industry chain, and increase the added value of agricultural products. It continuously promotes the transformation and upgrading of the initial processing of tea producing areas, implements standardized production, and promotes standardized cultivation, mechanized picking, and clean processing technologies. It continues to study new technologies for planting, picking, and biological control, and to enhance independent innovation capabilities. While accelerating the development of the tea industry, Huoshan County will give full play to its own environmental advantages, develop tea tourism, and realize the integration of tea tourism to promote the integration of the tertiary industry.

4.3 Insisting on improving the quality and cultivating the core competitiveness of ecological agriculture

Huoshan County insists on strengthening the training of talents and continuously improving the scientific and technological quality and management and operation capabilities of ecological agriculture talents. Huoshan County takes full advantage of its strong agricultural human capital in Anhui Province, and uses specialized agricultural research and training institutions in Anhui Province, such as the Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, and Hefei University of Technology, to arrange special funds, encourage and support scientific research in agricultural colleges and academies of agricultural sciences, organize scientific research personnel to conduct knowledge and planting production technical training for tea, silkworm and other enterprises, improve the scientific and technological quality and management level of eco-agriculture practitioners, and develop eco-agriculture Chain management trains some professional junior and intermediate technical talents, so that farmers can master advanced planting techniques and realize the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into practical applications. Sufficient human resources and material resources have better promoted the improvement of the competitiveness of the ecological agriculture industry.

4.4 Insisting on ecology to benefit the people and realizing the coordinated development of energy saving, emission reduction and poverty alleviation

Huoshan County ensures that ecological environment benefits the people. In recent years, Huoshan County has realized the increase of 570 000 mof urban green space, insisted on positioning beautiful villages with ecological livability, and vigorously implemented the integration of urban and rural sanitation, and realized that garbage will not fall to the ground, sewage will not enter the river, reinforced concrete will not enter mountains, pesticides and fertilizers will not go to the farmland. Besides, as the competent authority for poverty alleviation in the tourism industry, Huoshan County Tourism Bureau has focused on the organic combination of rural tourism and poverty alleviation, established a long-term mechanism, and promoted the sustainable development of poverty alleviation in the tourism industry. Under the successful entrepreneurial demonstration, more and more villagers began to engage in tourism-related work; in 2006, the Anhui Dabie Mountain Main Peak Tourism Company invested 30 million yuan in the planning and construction of the Longjing Gorge scenic spot, to guide the villagers to subscribe the construction and development of farmhouses, forming a cluster development; establishing the rural tourism poverty alleviation association, attracting more than 80 members, the average net income of farmhouse owners exceeds 200 000 yuan, and 5 farmhouse owners have an annual income of more than 1 million yuan. Among the members, 12 members are poor households, with an average annual income increase of more than 40 000 yuan, showing that tourism has a significant poverty reduction effect.

Acknowledgment:

the gratitude is given to the professor Lou Baodong from Hohai University. Thanks for all team members, and thanks for the local government and farmers of Huoshan County.