College-graduate village officials: a husband-and-wife team building a sweet business together

Li Lanfang and her husband Zhong Yewei are both college-graduate village officials in Wuzhifeng Township, Shangyou County, and the two are cutting honeycomb.

On June 19, at the apiary in Gaofeng Village, Wuzhifeng Township, Shangyou County, swarms of bees buzzed nonstop, while college-graduate village officials Li Lanfang and Zhong Yewei stood nearby guiding beekeepers in cutting honeycomb. Looking at the fresh, fragrant clumps of honey, beekeeper Zhang Zuxiong was beaming: "At this yield, we'll recover our costs and make a profit this year. Beekeeping was the right path to take!"

Li Lanfang and Zhong Yewei are both colleagues and a married couple. In 2012, both passed the exam to become college-graduate village officials and were assigned to Wuzhifeng Township, Shangyou County, becoming a "husband-and-wife team" among college-graduate village officials.

Wuzhifeng Township is one of the most remote townships in Shangyou County, about 70 km from the county seat. It has spectacular scenery and a pleasant climate, like a paradise on earth.

When they first arrived in Wuzhifeng Township, Li Lanfang and her husband were simply drawn by the beautiful natural scenery, but in their later work they found that the local foundation was weak, villagers had few sources of income, and the pace of getting rich was slow.

Helping the villagers get rich as quickly as possible became the greatest wish of this college-graduate village official couple.

In early 2014, a chance to study in neighboring Suichuan County led Li Lanfang to discover the business opportunity of beekeeping. "Many people there keep bees, because beekeeping requires relatively little investment, brings quick returns, and doesn't demand high technical skills. I thought it was especially suitable for the villagers of Wuzhifeng Township," Li Lanfang said.

The couple is checking the honey flow.

To reduce the villagers' investment risk, Li Lanfang and her husband first bought 6 boxes of bees for a trial and made several trips back and forth to Suichuan to learn beekeeping techniques. Hard work pays off: over a year, they earned nearly 3,000 yuan.

Having had their first taste of "sweetness," the couple began proactively sharing their beekeeping experience with villagers and encouraging them to keep bees too.

Under their leadership, in 2015 more than 30 households in Huangzhutou and Gaofeng villages of Wuzhifeng Township joined the beekeeping ranks, producing over 3,000 jin of honey. The beekeepers could hardly hide their joy at the harvest, but a new worry soon followed: where would this honey be sold?

"Transportation here is inconvenient and information is limited. Relying only on relatives and friends, it's very hard to open up sales channels." Li Lanfang thought that if they sold online, there would surely be a bigger market. So the couple registered Taobao and Weidian stores specifically to help villagers sell honey.

"At first, most customers who entered the store just asked questions, and few bought. Because it's online sales, many customers worried about the quality of the honey." To dispel customers' doubts, they adopted on-site honeycomb cutting, invited customers to visit in person, and uploaded videos of the honey-making process to the online store, gradually winning customers' trust, and the number of repeat customers grew.

The couple cans and packs the honey and ships it by express delivery.

Now, while selling honey online, they also put villagers' dried bamboo shoots, Shifu fish and other local specialties in the store to sell together.

To lead more people to prosperity, in March this year the couple also registered and established the Wuzhifeng Bijiashan Beekeeping Professional Cooperative. Using a "cooperative + farmers" model, it has brought in more than 50 farming households to take part in beekeeping, with a beekeeping scale of more than 800 boxes and expected annual profit of over 400,000 yuan.

"I never expected this young couple to be so clever, raising the villagers' income in just a year or two." Watching this young couple's "sweet" business thrive, villager Lai Guangfu, who is over 60 years old, gave a thumbs-up.