Left: Tang Xiumei, who works at an orange orchard in Duyang town, says she finds watering plants easier than her previous factory work. Right: An employee of a Guangxi-based company at a drilling site.

Nationwide, under the current poverty standard, which was set in 2010, 43.35 million fall below the line.

But Nongjing has found a novel way to raise its standard of living - scorpion farming - mainly to supply venom for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

The village's scorpion farm, which was established in September with 1 million yuan in government funding, now employs 10 locals full-time and several others part-time, including four women, says Qiu Xiaojun, a 34-year-old civil servant. He has been assigned by the Guangxi government to oversee daily operations.

"Once trained, a person can earn between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan a month here," Qiu says. "We are providing the villagers with an income source as well as technical knowledge they can use to set up their own businesses in future."

More than 2,000 people live in 10 villages in the vicinity. The residents raise pigs or poultry and grow corn, all mostly for personal consumption, as the remote location limits access to outside markets. The karst topography limits farming. Groundwater is scarce.

In Nongjing, the Manchurian scorpion - Mesobuthus martensii - is one of the main varieties bred artificially. Found in China and other parts of East Asia, where moisture levels are sufficient, a full-grown arachnid can be 2 to 6 centimeters long and has sharp pincers and a deadly telson, or tail tip.

A female is usually larger than a male, and natural breeding can take two years. But the process is completed in only a few months at the Nongjing village farm.

Qiu says the farm expects to earn more than 1.5 million yuan from sales this year. The current market price for a kilogram of scorpions is 930 yuan. Nongjing is working to meet demand in Guangdong, Henan and Shangdong provinces, where the bulk of the arachnids will be sold for pharmaceutical purposes.

Scorpion toxins are used in traditional Chinese medicine to "smooth the flow of blood in the human body". The arachnid is also eaten as a snack.

"The community is working together on this project," says Lan Tianting, 25, whose one job is to segregate female and male scorpions. "We want to build a brand around it."

As China seeks, by 2020, to end the worst poverty nationwide, such projects are expected to help the poor, not only through short-term earnings but by building entrepreneurial skills for ongoing use.

In March, the central government's work report said 12.4 million had been lifted out of poverty last year. Financial aid for poverty reduction programs has exceeded 100 billion yuan.