Rural young man makes a fortune raising free-range wild geese and builds a breeding and tourism industry

In 1976, Jiang Longcai was born in Xiangxi Township, Duchang County, by the shores of Poyang Lake. Both parents were genuine farmers, and there were four siblings in the family. "The family made a living by fishing, and we had a little land too, but there was not enough rice to eat, and often we had no idea where the next meal would come from after finishing the last one."

Because his family was poor, Jiang Longcai dropped out of school after finishing his second year of high school. In 1993, the state put forward the policy of reform and opening up, and with the idea of digging up a bucket of gold, 17-year-old Jiang Longcai boarded a train heading south and began his working life. With a friend's help, Jiang Longcai found his first job, working in an electronics factory, and he stuck with it for ten years. "This job did not come easily, so I cherished it very much. I was a rural kid, I worked very diligently and put my heart into it, so my leaders thought highly of me." Over ten years, Jiang Longcai rose from a small frontline worker to the position of assistant to the general manager.

Afterward, he successively served in management positions at electronics companies in Hangzhou and Dongguan, and rose as high as deputy general manager of a group. After working away from home for many years and achieving something, Jiang Longcai gradually wanted to carve out a world of his own. "My home is right by Poyang Lake, which has the best ecological resources, and there is great potential in the breeding industry." After nearly a year of market research, Jiang Longcai chose the project of wild goose breeding.

In 2016, after 23 years of working away from home, Jiang Longcai returned to Xiangxi and established the Poyan Ecological Breeding Farmers' Professional Cooperative. With his savings from many years, he transferred some abandoned land, built a wild goose breeding farm, bought 3,000 young wild geese, and also contracted more than 50 mu of fish ponds, raising freshwater fish as a side business. From the moment he decided to start his business, it meant that risk and opportunity coexisted. In the early days of the venture, Jiang Longcai encountered many difficulties. When he first started breeding, the farm, which had no emergency power supply, suffered a power outage, causing 20 to 30 young wild geese to freeze to death.

A big storm in May knocked over two breeding sheds and killed a batch of wild geese whose feathers were not yet fully grown and which could not be exposed to rain. Also, because he was unfamiliar with the drinking water conditions for wild geese, feeding water directly caused a batch of geese to come down with intestinal disease, and during that period an average of 10 geese died every day. In the end, the problem was solved only by digging his own pond. Jiang Longcai worked hard to keep improving his breeding techniques while using new media to innovate his sales model.

He told reporters that his wild geese are all free-range, allowing the geese to maintain their most primitive living state, and the corn fed to the geese is all the best northeastern corn, so as to guarantee the quality of the geese. In nearly a year, he had already sold one third of the geese.

Although he had not yet recovered his costs, he was very optimistic about the prospects for wild goose breeding. And his parents, who originally did not support his business venture, also often came to the farm to help. Jiang Longcai's breeding project made full use of the natural resources of Poyang Lake, allowed some abandoned land to be put back into use, and also helped drive economic development for surrounding poor households.

Jiang Longcai said he will expand the scale of breeding and strive to push his Poyang Lake wild goose brand to the whole province and even the whole country. Next, Jiang Longcai plans to combine ecological breeding with rural tourism, further expand the scale of wild goose breeding, build dining and fishing facilities, and develop wild goose ecological breeding sightseeing tourism, so as to help more forestry workers increase their incomes and become prosperous.

This article comes from Business Is My Forte, published with authorization from the Entrepreneur series, lightly edited and revised, copyright belongs to the author, and the content represents only the author's independent views.