Discovery of copper reserves proves a curse for the displaced farmers of Zhujia village

When the farmers of Zhujia village learned in 1956 that their beautiful valley was home to one of the world's biggest copper reserves, they organised a three-day ritual to pay tribute to heaven's generosity.

The farmers' roots in this isolated, mountainous area in northeast Jiangxi were centuries deep, but it took nothing more than the arrival of a letter from the government to tear them up - the order to vacate the site was delivered before the villagers could finish their ceremony.

Over the next 50 years, the displaced residents of Zhujia village took refuge in the mountains. Their compensation, they say, has been sulphurous air and heavy metal in the water, the monstrous roar of mining machinery and an exodus of young people out of their once idyllic village. The rice paddies, rapeseed crops and water buffalo are now the stuff of memories.

The mine has been the focus of hundreds of protests by villagers. Some of the demonstrations have ended in fatal violence. Protesters have been sent to prison. One government official said that as recently as 2006, mine officials used bulldozers to smash down the gate of the Sizhou township government building because they thought local officials sympathised with the farmers.

The Jiangxi Copper Corporation, the province's biggest business and a Fortune Global 500 company, has taken more than 18 billion yuan worth of copper and about 3 billion yuan worth of gold and silver from the pit, but its story is characterised more by bitterness and dirt than its profit announcements and stellar stock market price might suggest.

The popular struggle against the big businesses that seem to bully their way onto the land without respect for the environment or local interests is a central theme of the story of Jiangxi's economy.

Zhujia is not the only village to have been uprooted by the mining companies - at least four other villages have been buried by tailings.