The barren land in the village and the severe water scarcity meant that his four-member family would seldom make more than 5,000 yuan ($690) a year from farming, which used to be their main source of income.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, China's water resources per capita on average is about 2,200 cubic meters. In Fuping, it is just 196 cubic meters per capita.

Yang's family's economic situation was so dire in the 1990s that he had to borrow money to buy milk powder for his two children, the price of which stood at 8 yuan per canister at the time, the 55-year-old recalled.

Their life would become chaotic during heavy rains. Soil and water rushed down from the barren slopes, making the road impassable. To make matters worse, parts of the road connecting the remote village to the outside world were sometimes washed out, he recalled.

That might make them go without adequate daily supplies for days, as they usually had to buy such necessities from the nearest township of Zhuangli, which is more than 5 kilometers away.

Under the program introduced in 2012, gently sloping land was converted into terraced fields available for villagers to lease for persimmon cultivation, while the barren steeper slopes were afforested to mitigate soil erosion caused by rainwater.

In total, 90 hectares of trees were planted and 130 hectares of terraced fields were established in Yangjia and the two neighboring villages of Guzhang and Wangzhuang. Additionally, 18 km of new roads were built in the area to facilitate persimmon farming and forest management, according to the Fuping county government.

The program has increased the size of persimmon orchards in Yangjia to 367 hectares, it said.

Qi Lei, an official overseeing water and soil conservation for the Fuping government, highlighted a range of additional measures aimed at improving water retention in the county.

Semicircular cement enclosures have been installed around each tree to aid in retaining rainwater at the base of the trees. Additionally, small dams have been built in mountain gullies to impede the runoff of rainwater and thus have more of the valuable resource absorbed into the ground.

Thanks to these measures, 50 to 60 percent of the rainwater that falls in the area can be retained, effectively curbing local water and soil loss, he added.

Yang leased almost 2.7 hectares of terraced fields to plant persimmons. When the trees started to bear fruit five years later, they became a reliable source of income, bringing in about 180,000 yuan a year.

He said local persimmon production has more than doubled thanks to the water and soil loss mitigation program. This, too, has been aided by a drip irrigation system the local government introduced to help address irrigation difficulties in the arid area.

As the mountains have been transformed into a lusher landscape, locals no longer have to endure the challenges of muddy roads after the rain and swirling sand during windy weather, he added.

Before 2012, villagers found it challenging to sell the dried persimmons they produced locally. After giving some of their preserved fruit to friends and relatives, they took what was left to markets and fairs in Zhuangli to sell, Yang said.

Now, Yang sells all his dried persimmons to an e-commerce company in the village named New Farmers.