TAIYUAN, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Wannianbao, a village on China's Loess Plateau, has an interesting name. It literally means "having enough to eat for 10,000 years," which was given by an emperor as a good wish some 2,000 years ago.

However, the name falls short of reality. The fate of the village in north China's Shanxi Province was not changed until recent decades.

Compared with his forefathers' millenium-long battle with poverty, it only took three-plus years for villager Ren Aixian and his family to win. He and his wife earned around 30,000 yuan (about 4,300 U.S. dollars) last year by working for a rural mushroom planting cooperative in Wannianbao.

"Thanks to the jobs offered by the local government, our annual income is five times higher than that six years ago," said Ren, who recently bought a smartphone for his nine-year-old grandson to attend online courses amid novel coronavirus outbreak.

Due to poverty, Ren and his wife never had the chance to attend school. Their four children became migrant workers after dropping out of junior high school.

Now the family enjoys their cozy life in a new brick house, not far away from their former residence -- two cave dwellings dug in loess slopes which were dark and dangerous.

"Our village deserves its name now," Ren said.

The Loess Plateau, where Ren's village is located, covers much of China's seven provincial-level regions, including Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Shaanxi.

Thousands of years of cultivation, compounded by the powdery nature of the soil and the growth in population, had already led to a near-collapse of the plateau's ecosystem and widespread poverty by the beginning of the 20th century.

China has long been dedicated to eradicating poverty, contributing to more than 70 percent of global poverty reduction. It aims to eradicate absolute poverty in 2020, fulfilling the first goal of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda 10 years ahead of schedule.

In late February, a total of 17 more counties in Shanxi Province have been removed from China's list of impoverished counties, marking all of its 58 impoverished counties getting rid of poverty.

Shanxi is among several Chinese provincial-level regions on the Loess Plateau that have recently bid farewell to its poor and backward past. Others include Henan and Shaanxi provinces as well as Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

From developing industries such as tourism and e-commerce and relocating people who live in geologically hazardous areas to ensuring children receive basic education, governments at all levels have racked their brains to help people shake off poverty.

"To the local residents who used to live below the poverty line, they will no longer worry about how to fulfill the basic necessities of life. They are able to consider something beyond survival like self-fulfillment and family development," said Xing Yuan, a professor with School of Philosophy and Sociology, Shanxi University.

"As a developing country, what China has achieved in poverty elimination offers references for other countries in this regard," Xing added.

Thanks to the government funds on infrastructure, photovoltaic power stations and vegetable greenhouses, Wannianbao Village got rid of poverty two years ago. The number of mushroom greenhouses in the village is expected to reach 85 this year, helping increase incomes for more than 1,000 households.

"The achievements still need to be consolidated. We have launched a new round of combing of local villagers to ensure no one will fall back into poverty," said Liu Jicheng, head of the villagers' committee. Enditem

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