More than 2.5 million people, 41 percent of Ningxia's population, are living in the region's southern mountainous area, which the United Nations listed as one of the most uninhabitable places in 1970 due to its extreme environment. The government, which brings a considerable amount of aid to the area every year, identifies more than 1 million residents as being below the poverty line.

Local people and the government, however, are looking for a sustainable way of to draw the local people out of the poverty trap.

China Daily's Peng Yinning went to investigate.

Related story: Ningxia residents begin the long climb out of poverty

Story: Peng Yinning

Video: D J Clark

Producer: Flora Yue