A Man from Northeast China Aims to Become the Navel Orange King of Zigui, Hubei
A chance opportunity forged an indissoluble bond between Li Peng, a young man from Heilongjiang, and the navel oranges of Zigui, Hubei. In his early years, reading Qu Yuan's poem "Ode to the Orange Tree" often filled him with passion. When he arrived in Zigui, Li Peng finally found a real-life version of the "Ode to the Orange Tree" that was even more breathtaking.
"Fair tree of the afterworld, the orange came and submitted here. Ordained to not migrate, it grows in the southern land. Deep-rooted and hard to move, with even more single-minded purpose." From then on, Li Peng put down roots in Zigui, taking the character of the orange tree as his example, single-mindedly tending to the navel orange industry, and resolved to become Zigui's "Navel Orange King."
After years of hard work, Li Peng not only became one of the largest navel orange growers in Zigui County, Hubei Province, but also the largest seller of navel oranges in Zigui County. However, he was not satisfied with this, and instead pressed forward toward even bigger and higher goals...
Helping a Friend Once Turned a Medicine Seller into a Fruit Seller
On July 15, 1976, Li Peng was born into an ordinary farming family in Xinmin Township, Mulan County, Heilongjiang Province. After graduating from high school, he grew into a handsome, clever, and capable young man, and was recruited by Harbin Pharmaceutical Factory No. 3 as a salesman. In 2000, Li Peng was sent by Harbin Pharmaceutical Factory No. 3 to Hubei as a sales manager.
In 2005, Li Peng's friend Wang Chao from Qianjiang came to see him and said: "A relative of mine in Zhijiang has unsold citrus. Can you find someone to help sell some?" Li Peng immediately called a friend in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang, who sold fruit, and the friend readily agreed.
Li Peng and Wang Chao tried shipping 20,000 jin of citrus to Mudanjiang. Unexpectedly, the citrus was very popular with the people of Heilongjiang. In less than a day, the entire shipment was sold out, and the selling price was several times higher than expected. They made more than 20,000 yuan on one truckload of citrus.
With his business acumen, Li Peng immediately recognized the business opportunity here, and thus conceived the idea of dealing in citrus. The following year, Li Peng resigned from his position as Hubei regional manager of Harbin Pharmaceutical Factory No. 3 and began the citrus trading business.
After making inquiries, he learned that Zigui's navel oranges were of good quality, sweet, large, and delicious, so he came to Guojiaaba Town, a navel orange production area in Zigui County, to purchase navel oranges. As soon as he arrived in Guojiaaba, he was stunned by the massive scale of cultivation before his eyes. No wonder Qu Yuan could write "Ode to the Orange Tree" - this place was a sea of orange trees!
In Zigui, Li Peng not only completed his role transition from medicine seller to fruit seller, continuously shipping Zigui navel oranges and Yichang mandarin oranges to the Northeast, but also made a large number of good friends in citrus sales and citrus cultivation. Under the guidance of these friends, Li Peng gained a deep understanding of citrus varieties, quality, harvest seasons, and storage methods. His citrus sales business grew larger and larger.
Transferring Land to Grow Navel Oranges: A Salesman Becomes a Farmer
For an outsider to purchase citrus in an unfamiliar environment, the degree of hardship is beyond what most people can imagine, and he also had to endure the loneliness of being far from his family. Every time he went to a place, Li Peng had to stay for about half a month, and sometimes he could not return home for months. Li Peng could endure and cope with all of this, but the reality of numerous citrus varieties and uneven quality was the most headache-inducing. The worse the citrus quality, the more the farmers would pester you, still hoping to sell at a good price. If he bought it, the poor quality meant it could not fetch a good price and he faced losses; if he didn't buy it, he could not bear to refuse.
Just when he was at his wit's end, someone pointed out to him: why not grow it himself! That's right - he could plant a demonstration orchard first and let others follow suit. This would not only ensure the quality of the citrus but also promote the overall improvement of citrus cultivation standards. With good products, sales would be smoother and profits much higher.
Through the matchmaking of friends, Li Peng came to Lianghekou Town for an inspection and found that much of the land here was idle and the rental fees were relatively cheap. In early 2010, Li Peng came to Lianghekou Town and began negotiating land transfers with local farmers. His straightforward personality and amiable manner quickly made the local farmers like this young man. With the support of various village officials, the land transfer made rapid progress. In less than a year, Li Peng had transferred over 380 mu of contiguous citrus groves and wasteland in four villages - Taiping, Wangjiaya, Songjia, and Lianghe. Afterward, he transferred over 80 mu of land in Jiuwanxi Town. Including scattered plots, Li Peng's total citrus cultivation area exceeded 500 mu. He leaped to become one of the largest navel orange growers in Zigui County.
While Li Peng was transferring land, Taiping Village in Lianghekou Town was building a central primary school, with the new school site located in a field of citrus trees. Li Peng brought in vehicles and moved all of the more than 2,000 navel orange trees from the new school site to Lianghe Village, immediately planting over 30 mu of mature trees. The transferred wasteland became an orchard in one day and turned into a high-yield orchard in two years.
Building a career takes courage; becoming a farmer takes even more courage. To put down roots in Zigui, Li Peng brought his wife and daughter to Lianghekou Town and became a farmer in Group 1 of Taiping Village, Lianghekou Town.
Going it alone cannot achieve great things. One person being rich does not count as being rich; only when everyone is rich is there true prosperity. To start a business in Zigui's navel orange sector required the strength of a team and the joint efforts of farmers. To lead local farmers in jointly starting businesses and becoming wealthy, in August 2011, initiated by Li Peng, the Zigui County Pengyuan Citrus Professional Cooperative was established. Farmers from the four villages of Lianghe, Taiping, Wangjiaya, and Songjia, where land had been transferred, all joined the cooperative. On August 1, the day the cooperative was officially inaugurated in Group 1 of Taiping Village, Lianghekou Town, more than 50 members unanimously elected Li Peng as chairman of the cooperative.
After 5 years of development, by 2016, the cooperative had grown from its initial 50-plus members to over 200 members, covering a navel orange area of over 2,000 mu. It became the largest citrus cooperative in Lianghekou Town.
Promoting Green Prevention and Control Cultivation to Comprehensively Improve Citrus Quality
Growing citrus and being a farmer was not the goal; growing good citrus was Li Peng's original intention.
Li Peng well understood that the quality of citrus directly affects the selling price and brand of the product. It is the first gateway in the citrus industry development chain; a slight misstep could undo all previous efforts and result in total loss.
To learn solid citrus management skills, Li Peng spent a year apprenticing and learning the trade. From citrus pruning, fertilizing, and grafting to weeding, spraying, and harvesting, he learned it all. At the same time, he sought advice from the Zigui County Specialty Products Center and some well-known citrus experts in the Yichang area, and invited them to the cooperative for technical guidance.
As the scale of citrus cultivation grew, field management costs remained high. In the past, when farmers operated on a household basis, they did not need to pay labor wages. Now, Li Peng's over 500 mu of citrus all required hired labor to manage. He fell into deep thought: what method could reduce labor costs while still ensuring high yield and quality of the navel orange orchard?
Just when Li Peng was struggling, a piece of information brought him a turning point: a "Paimirui Green High-Quality High-Yield Citrus Full-Process Solution" was being promoted on a large scale across the country. This solution organically combined scientific pruning, balanced fertilization, and precise pesticide application. It could reduce the number of pesticide applications for pest and disease control from the previous 6 to 8 times to 3 to 4 times, cut labor by two-thirds, and save one-third of pesticide costs. It was the most cutting-edge green food pest and disease control technical solution in citrus production at the time.
Li Peng immediately sought out the founder of the solution, Professor-level citrus expert Zhang Daping, who had retired from the Yichang Citrus Research Institute, and introduced the solution. On April 25, 2016, the cooperative held its first training session on "Green Food Citrus Pest and Disease Control Technology" (abbreviated as the "Lazy Man Method"). Wu Shuyong, director of the Zigui County Agricultural Technology Service Center, and Zhang Daping, citrus expert of the Yichang Association for Science and Technology for the Elderly, attended and lectured.
The cooperative members and large citrus growers who attended the training were deeply inspired. On the spot, 19 large citrus growers applied to join the Zigui County Pengyuan Citrus Cooperative. That year, more than 80 farmers with 2,000 mu of citrus managed under the new technical solution and applied pesticides according to prescription, and the orchard pest and disease control results were immediate. The goals of "three applications of Paimirui per year, citrus pests and diseases fully controlled" and "green, high-yield, and high-quality" were achieved.
From then on, citrus technical training became one of the "benefits" that cooperative members enjoyed every year. The harmless management solution for citrus and the prescription-based pesticide application model greatly boosted Li Peng's confidence. He planned to, within the next five years, through the approach of using key points to drive broader adoption, comprehensively promote green citrus integrated prevention and control technology and solutions, develop 5,000 new cooperative members, and establish green food high-quality citrus production bases of over 30,000 mu in Lianghekou Town (over 500 mu already established in 2016), Jiuwanxi (80 mu of green citrus base already established in 2016), and surrounding townships, to ensure the demand for citrus in the terminal market and provide consumers with high-quality, safe, and reliable green premium citrus.
Building a Northeast Navel Orange Direct Sales Center to Turn Farmers' Citrus Trees into Money Trees
Growing citrus is hard work. Whether farmers can earn money after a year of toil depends on sales. Whenever Li Peng saw citrus going unsold, he felt deeply saddened.
The purpose of establishing the cooperative was to lead the villagers to prosperity together. Now that citrus quality had improved, how to sell the citrus and sell it at a good price was placed before Li Peng.
To sell Zigui navel oranges, Li Peng made full use of the connections he had accumulated - from relatives to friends, from medicine sellers to fruit sellers... Whenever he heard of an acquaintance dealing in citrus somewhere, he would make inquiries to understand market demand and consumer habits. Over the years, he had visited all the major citrus wholesale markets across the country. Harbin, Mudanjiang, Changsha, Xi'an - his figure could be seen shuttling through them all.
In 2015, Li Peng's main business partner, Zheng Wuhong from Changsha Hefeng Fruit Industry, was a new friend he had made while expanding the market. After Li Peng brought Zheng Wuhong to Lianghekou Town, that year alone he purchased over 2.5 million kg of citrus, becoming one of the main forces in the town's citrus sales. During citrus purchasing, Li Peng gave Zheng Wuhong his full assistance, from weighing navel oranges, waxing, packaging, and loading, ensuring that 50,000 jin of fresh fruit was shipped daily from Lianghekou Town to the Changsha Hongxing Fruit Market.
Through Li Peng's matchmaking, several citrus buyers came to Lianghekou Town. In 2015, a total of over 6,000 tons of citrus was sold, contributing to the citrus sales of Lianghekou Town. He himself was commended by the local government as an advanced individual in economic work.
Farmer Deng Bangxi from Group 3 of Taiping Village, under the guidance of the cooperative over the past two years, not only saw her navel orange production increase year after year, but also saw her navel orange sales improve year after year. She praised Li Peng to everyone she met for doing practical things and turning her citrus into money.
To create a stable sales network for Zigui navel oranges, Li Peng decided to establish a Zigui navel orange direct sales center in Harbin. In August 2016, Li Peng returned to his hometown of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, and rented a 2,000 sq m warehouse in the center of Harbin for citrus storage, packaging, fruit washing, waxing, and other operations. At the same time, in Harbin's Daoli District, he set up two Zigui navel orange experience stores. He also established connections with three large supermarkets in Harbin - Carrefour, Walmart, and Metro - and with 20 small and medium supermarkets including Zhongyanghong and Xiaoyueliang, and established citrus sales contacts with over 60 fruit retail stores distributed across Harbin's four districts of Daoli, Daowai, Nangang, and Xiangfang.
While the Northeast sales network was being established, the Zigui County Pengyuan Citrus Cooperative was restructured into the Zigui County Land Share Professional Cooperative.
After restructuring, the cooperative began building a 1,000 sq m comprehensive service building in the central area of Lianghekou Town, Zigui County. Construction of the comprehensive service building started at the end of September 2016 and was officially put into use in early 2017. The building houses a green food citrus pesticide and fertilizer supporting service center and a national sales service department for the Taobao Pengyuan store; and a citrus technical training center with a capacity of 150 people.
In October 2016, the Northeast Zigui Navel Orange Direct Sales Center was fully launched. Li Peng decided to use the Harbin Zigui Navel Orange Direct Sales Center as a window to continuously expand citrus sales channels to surrounding areas, striving through three to five years of effort to have Zigui navel oranges capture the entire Northeast market, drive annual sales of Zigui navel oranges to over 100,000 tons, and generate cash income of over 400 million yuan for farmers.