Vegetable farming requires both good cultivation and good vegetables
Recently, the Nonghe Ecological Agriculture Industrial Park in Gu'an County, Hebei Province, which had just weathered a storm, was quiet and still. Rows of vegetable greenhouses, washed clean by the rain, stood neatly upright, and the clean pathways showed not a trace of standing water or mud. A breeze blew, carrying the natural fresh fragrance of vegetables, melons and fruits. Compared with the mess left elsewhere after the heavy rain, this scene surprised the reporter somewhat.
"This is thanks to the double-T-shaped drainage system we designed ourselves. Every greenhouse has a branch line leading to the main channel, ensuring that standing water is quickly drained away and stored for later use." Facing the reporter's questions, Zheng Liguo, founder and general manager of the park, answered in a very professional tone.
Born in 1972, Zheng Liguo has had a rich career. He worked successively in beer sales, real estate brokerage and the construction industry. Thanks to his intelligence and hard work, he thrived in every industry he entered and accumulated considerable wealth. In October 2011, foreseeing that the era of great development for modern agriculture was about to arrive, Zheng Liguo decisively turned away from the real estate brokerage industry and devoted himself to agriculture, developing and building the Gu'an County Nonghe Ecological Agriculture Industrial Park, which focuses on the cultivation of vegetables, melons and fruits as well as agritourism.
"The park has all my heart and effort poured into it, whether in funding or energy," Zheng Liguo said. He has little formal education, so he could only rely on studying more and researching diligently to gradually understand agriculture, get to know agriculture and go deep into agriculture.
This remark from Zheng Liguo is very down-to-earth. In the current situation, many bosses from other industries have begun to pay attention to agriculture, but generally they invest money and then hire people who know the field to run and manage it. Zheng Liguo, however, does everything himself, and it is precisely his constant "figuring out" of technology, management and sales that has made his agricultural industrial park rise to fame in just a few short years.
"He is so good at researching things; he has many methods and they are highly practical," said Old Zhang, who has grown vegetables his whole life in Shouguang, Shandong. Although Zheng Liguo is not an agricultural technical expert and is not even a university graduate, he can always figure out ways to continuously improve and innovate.
In the Gu'an County Nonghe Ecological Agriculture Industrial Park, the slogans "I want to, grow good vegetables" and "I want to grow, good vegetables" can be seen everywhere. The two simple slogans are written clearly, and Zheng Liguo also understands them clearly: only by "growing good vegetables" can he maintain the competitiveness of his products and his enterprise.
Having grown good vegetables, and with the locational advantage of being close to Beijing, Zheng Liguo's vegetables, melons and fruits were never a concern to sell. How to cut out the cumbersome intermediate links and achieve direct connection between the place of production and the dining table became an urgent problem Zheng Liguo wanted to solve.
Relying on his own tenacity and the quality of his vegetables, melons and fruits, Zheng Liguo traveled many times to major cities such as Beijing, Tianjin and Langfang to seek customer resources and directly supply the canteens of large institutions and enterprise groups.
"Realizing a membership-based agricultural product supply is actually similar to contract farming. This not only ensures product sales but also ensures price stability, so there will be no major price fluctuations," Zheng Liguo said. At present, several enterprises, including CITIC Group, have signed contracts with him, and the products are in short supply.