Ecological pig farming becomes new hope for prosperity for a pig farmer on a mountainside

After waiting 15 minutes with Xie Fuhong, director of the supervision committee of Youfangling Community, outside the fence gate at Wang Jiafa's doorstep, we still did not see him. Amid the barking of a big yellow dog, Director Xie and I slowly walked back down the mountain.

Wang Jiafa is one of Xie Fuhong's designated assistance households. This time, on a visit to learn about his poverty alleviation situation, I came along to conduct a survey.

Previously, Wang Jiafa farmed, and during the slack season he went to the city to work as a migrant laborer, living a rather hard life. Wang Jiafa is a man with ideas, and he is also willing to escape poverty and become prosperous through his own efforts. Just after the Spring Festival, with the village's help, he applied for a 50,000-yuan subsidized-interest loan and began free-range raising of piglets in his own forest land.

Just as we walked out of the first fence gate, we heard the sound of Wang Jiafa driving his piglets along. His "lo lo lo lo" calls were soft and cautious, as if he feared that even one piglet might fail to keep up with the group.

-- "Master Wang, I was just looking for you!" -- "What are you looking for me for?"

After hearing our calls, Wang Jiafa stopped and waited for us to cross the uneven path and climb over a fence, and then we saw him in camouflage clothing. Around his feet were a dozen or so black and brown piglets grunting and squealing, while some piglets had already run off into the grass by the water, happily romping and eating grass.

When Wang Jiafa saw the village supervision committee director beside me, he recognized a familiar face, so he bent down, broke off a handful of leaves for the piglets at his feet, tossed them to them, carefully threaded his way through the gaps between them, sat down on a piece of wood nearby, and only then took a careful breath.

Wang Jiafa said that at the beginning he bought 50 piglets in total, but now only 30 piglets remained in stock. When he used to farm at home, he would raise one or two pigs in a pen, but free-range raising of dozens of pigs on such a large scale was still a certain challenge for him. "Not enough experience, not enough skill, I have already lost 20 pigs."

According to Wang Jiafa's plan, unlike the 6-month slaughter time for meat pigs on farms, pigs raised ecologically free-range in mountain forests have good meat quality and grow slowly. It takes about eight months for them to reach 200 jin and be ready for slaughter. By then, he can earn 2,000 yuan per pig, but judging from the current situation, simply recovering his costs would already be very good.

Ecologically free-range raising of meat pigs halfway up the mountain is not an easy thing. Xie Fuhong, the designated assistance official, had always worried that Wang Jiafa's water use was inconvenient and that the piglets might get sick. Wang Jiafa repeatedly said that the water source was actually very easy to solve. At the end, Wang Jiafa stood up, pointed to the deep grass opposite, and then said slowly that water flowing down from the mountain was right there in that grass, so water use was very convenient.

Wang Jiafa was unwilling to show others the difficulties he faced. Only after repeated questioning by the designated assistance official did Wang Jiafa say that his pig-raising facilities were still somewhat inadequate, because the mountain forest land area was relatively large and he needed some netting to ensure the piglets would not run off and get lost. In addition, his reserve feed for the piglets was still somewhat short. His family's more than 3 mu of land produced at most 500 jin of corn per mu, and the feed ground from it was sometimes not enough for emergencies.

When Wang Jiafa saw us off, we saw that his three-wheeled motorcycle was filled with crushed corn. Wang Jiafa had crushed it at home with a machine and transported it here. Now his was the only household on the mountain, and the cost of running power lines was too high, so there was no need for it. Wang Jiafa said that after he finished feeding this batch of piglets and gained some experience, he planned to build another pen on the slope on the other side, and the income next time should be a bit better than this time.

The mountain road was rugged. When Xie Fuhong and I turned off the bumpy mountain road, I habitually looked back. Wang Jiafa had driven the piglets in the ravine up the slope. The piglets ran into the pen in a single file, their little legs pumping vigorously. After all the piglets had entered the pen, Wang Jiafa closed the last fence gate.

As we walked, Xie Fuhong muttered to me, "I'll go back and see whether I can fight for a bit more policy support for him."

The place where Wang Jiafa lives on the mountain has no electricity, but these piglets he raises have become a light shining in his heart, giving him hope for escaping poverty and becoming prosperous, accompanying him through every dark night on the mountainside and welcoming every ray of morning light.