A winery has been operating in Chenghe village, Haimen, a county-level city in Nantong, for nearly eight months, bringing in a lot of money for the locals.

The village was once a city-level impoverished village, but Yu Guoquan, the village's new Party secretary, has managed to turn its fortunes around.

Yu was transferred to the village in May 2019 and discovered that the village had little industry. He came up with the idea of setting up a winery after learning that the village was home to vast rice fields.

"The winery will purchase locally produced rice and create jobs for villagers," Yu explained.

Most employees at the winery are either disabled or impoverished, including Jiang Linfa.

Jiang used to be a farmer and earned no more than 9,000 yuan ($1,274.4) per year for each hectare of land. His wife suffers from cerebral infarction and depression, so he was not able to find work elsewhere.

"It is nice working in the winery, where I can bring in 2,000 yuan per month and take care of my wife," said Jiang.

The rice wine produced in the winery has already been sold at many supermarkets and is currently breaking even, according to Yu. In the future, all the winery's profits will be used to improve the village's infrastructure and living environment by doing things such as installing streetlights.

All wine dross from the winery has been sent for free to 1,400 local households, as it can be used to make steamed bread and cook other dishes. Water used to wash the rice has also been sent to local fishponds to help operators reduce costs.