Black-brown goose farmer Zhang Yufen leads neighboring villagers to prosperity
Recently, the tilapia breeding demonstration base run by Zhang Yufen, a leading female farmer in Bailian Community, Baitu Town, Gaoyao District, Zhaoqing City, and her husband Li Laiji, was jointly awarded the title of "Guangdong Province Women's Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base" by the Guangdong Provincial Women's Federation and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture. With this, the farm of Zhang Yufen and her husband, which focuses on raising black-brown geese, has become a "Women's Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base" at the provincial, municipal and district levels.
From swimming in the water to walking on land
Recently, accompanied by staff from the Zhaoqing City and Gaoyao District women's federations, the reporter followed a winding mountain road to a large pond. There, several greenhouses came into view, filled with thousands of black-brown geese stretching their necks and honking nonstop. This is Zhang Yufen'sgoosefarm.
Zhang Yufen'sgoosefarming history dates back to 2010. She originally raised tilapia and had built a tilapia breeding base. Later, she intended to transition, raising black-brown geese beside the fish ponds while continuing to farm fish. She said that at the beginning she raised them free-range, and because of a lack of technology, output was not large. Later, she gradually worked out a set of methods for raising black-brown geese and planned to expand the scale.
In 2012, she contracted more than 200 mu of fish ponds in Dazhou Village, Baitu Town, and planned to build standardized meat goose sheds beside the ponds, but ran into a funding bottleneck. After the municipal and district women's federations learned of the situation, in August of that year they helped her obtain a 300,000 yuan subsidized loan from the provincial women's federation. "We used the loan to build specialized goose-raising greenhouses," Zhang Yufen said.
From then on, Zhang Yufen embarked on a path of industrialized development. In 2013, the farm registered a trademark, established a brand and increased its market influence and share. At present, Zhang Yufen's goose farm has invested more than 7 million yuan, covers more than 600 mu, and has 11 goose sheds, each capable of raising more than 6,000 geese. From an annual output of 30,000 geese in 2011, it has grown to an annual output of more than 200,000 geese today, with products mainly sold to Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Macao, China, Guangzhou and other places, and annual sales of more than 20 million yuan. While enriching herself, she did not forget to help her neighbors get rich. While Zhang Yufen became prosperous, she did not forget the farmers around her.
After years of practice, Zhang Yufen and her husband have mastered a relatively mature set of goose-raising techniques, and they are often invited by the Gaoyao District agricultural department and the Zhaoqing City Agricultural School to give lectures. People also often come to learn from them after hearing of their success. They compiled their black-brown goose raising techniques into a booklet and gave it away free to those seeking to learn. Some villagers worked beside their goose farm, learning techniques while earning wages, and after a year or two went home to raise geese themselves and eventually became bosses. Zhang Yufen saw this and felt sweet in her heart.
In recent years, Zhang Yufen and her husband, through science popularization activities, technical training and other forms, have helped more than 1,100 people in surrounding towns such as Baitu, Huilong, Jiaotang and Xiangang raise black-brown geese. In June 2015, Zhang Yufen's breeding base was jointly awarded the title of "China Association for Science and Technology Rural Science Popularization Demonstration Base" by the China Association for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance, becoming the only national-level "Science Popularization Demonstration Base" in Gaoyao District to receive this honor.
In addition to helping others with technology, Zhang Yufen also supports nearby goose farmers in terms of seedlings, feed and sales channels, enabling these farmers to achieve relatively good economic returns. It is understood that the annual per capita net income of farmers raising geese is 39,000 yuan, while in 2015 the annual per capita net income in Baitu Town was only 17,000 yuan.
Zhang Yufen and her husband believe that the more geese surrounding farmers raise, the more a Chinese black-brown goose breeding base can be built, forming a large market and a nationwide brand. As for the development of the base, Zhang Yufen already has a goal in mind: to further expand the scale of goose raising to reach 100,000 geese on hand; to establish their own slaughterhouse to carry out preliminary processing of geese; and to set up their own sales outlets in various places, gradually building an industrial chain system based on black-brown goose farming.