Guizhou's Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities' canteen sells dishes made of agricultural products it purchases from impoverished villages as part of a poverty-alleviation project in the province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

On a recent dull, drizzly morning, several trucks filled with vegetables－including pumpkins, white gourds, cabbages and garlic－parked in a small square in Kapu town in Guizhou's Pingtang county, waiting to be unloaded by dozens of villagers in plastic raincoats.

The square is a distribution center from which the fresh produce of the village will be delivered to the canteens of colleges and other schools across Guizhou province－after passing strict safety tests, of course.

Official statistics show that there are a total of 17,890 school canteens in the province, serving an estimated 6.2 million students.

The overall amount of food needed each month will cost up to a billion yuan ($144 million) and, if that requirement can be met by the impoverished areas, the money could benefit up to a million people.

According to the Guizhou provincial department of education, schools in Guizhou have spent a total of 1.3 billion yuan during the spring term this year to purchase goods from poor villages, which have been exploring sustainable ways to alleviate poverty in the area.

Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities in Pingtang county is one of the pioneers of the program that regularly orders vegetables from local villages.

"We started to buy produce from poor households in Kapu's Xinguan village early last March," says Chen Zhisong, deputy Party secretary of QNUN.

"We took more than 200,000 yuan to the village, going door to door, yet only spent 10 percent of the budget due to the lack of supply."

To gather the scattered, impoverished farmers and improve the efficiency of the deal, the university located a center where a large market is held at the beginning of each semester. Demand for the categories and amounts of vegetables is posted on the bulletin board in the village, enabling farmers and cooperatives to produce according to the needs of the customers.

"In the past, I could only earn around 1,000 yuan from my pumpkins each year, as I failed to find profitable outlets for them," local farmer Xiong Zuowu says.