New farmers have smart ways of farming, and even a tiny plot of land can be turned into gold

“‘Tiantoupi’, as the name suggests, is agricultural product wholesale direct from the field. Our goal is to shorten the distance between the field and the dining table, provide the market with healthy and nourishing vegetables and fruits, and build a modern agricultural e-commerce platform integrating research, production, supply, sales and incubation.” said Gao Ming, head of the Shanghai “Tiantoupi” Agricultural Product Sales Cooperative.

After “Tiantoupi” was selected for the third “Shanghai Top Ten Entrepreneurial Newcomers”, some venture capital firms approached Gao Ming, saying one after another that they wanted to invest or cooperate.

Where does the appeal of “Tiantoupi” lie? Wang Jianfeng, owner of a family farm in Jiangzhuang Village, Caojing Town, Jinshan, Shanghai, took the reporter to his base and showed off the thriving “thumb watermelons”. “Thumb watermelons” are a new variety provided by the “Tiantoupi” cooperative, and the current market price has reached 80 yuan per jin, with orders from customers already booked out to 3 months later.

The reporter found that the “Tiantoupi” cooperative base grows only unusual agricultural products, such as red lotus, mountain spinach, purple dragon tongue, five-flavor vegetable, red okra and so on, and each vegetable has its own health benefits. Therefore, the prices of these agricultural products are also unusual. For example, violet rapeseed sells for 12 yuan per jin, and each mu can yield 5000 jin per crop; another example is red lotus, which needs only a 2.5-month growing cycle per crop, can reach a yield of 6000 jin per mu, and sells for about 16 yuan per jin.

Now, the “Tiantoupi” cooperative handles between 80 and 90 kinds of agricultural products each year, all rare new, unusual and special varieties on the market. Its research team trials several hundred new varieties every year, selecting the ones consumers like for production.

It is worth mentioning that the “Tiantoupi” cooperative does not advocate blind expansion, but instead controls each variety at a moderate planting area, ensuring the market scarcity of vegetable varieties to achieve “being able to sell” and “selling well”. Gao Ming told the reporter that “Tiantoupi” produces health-care vegetables, demand from major restaurants and mid-to-high-end consumer groups is strong, and he himself can only satisfy 60% of customer orders.

Leveraging its advantages in seed sources, technology, sales, distribution and other aspects, the “Tiantoupi” cooperative has not only greatly increased the output of each mu of farmland, but also worked hard to cultivate new types of business entities for agriculture.

Zhao Yong, director of the Shanghai Jinshan Employment Promotion Center, said that Jinshan, Shanghai is creating an entrepreneurial urban district, and they have opened more than 100 mu of entrepreneurial park in Langxia Town, Jinshan District, dividing it into individual units of two or three mu each, equipping them with greenhouses, drip irrigation, plastic film and other supporting facilities, and recruiting young people interested in agriculture to come and start businesses. At present, a large number of young people have signed up, and the local area has selected six or seven of them.

After young people sign up, they first receive unified training from the “Tiantoupi” cooperative. During production, in addition to unified provision of seeds, fertilizer and other agricultural inputs, technical personnel also regularly go to the fields to give hands-on guidance. Because every step has operating standards, young people can basically learn them as long as they are diligent. At harvest time, all products are purchased in a unified way by the cooperative.

The implementation of new agricultural projects has promoted the “emptying the cage to replace the bird” of agriculture in Langxia Town. Now, many local young people go out to work, leaving only elderly people still farming in scattered plots, mostly only a few fen or one or two mu in area, and what they grow are also traditional varieties, such as vegetables, watermelons, honey peaches and so on. Langxia Town has concentrated the scattered land in farmers’ hands, attracting young people like Gao Ming to develop high-efficiency agriculture, promoting the upgrading of local agriculture.