A post-80s returnee in Jiangyou starts a business, leading villagers to raise ostriches
Ren Wenwen (first from right) introduces ostriches to visitors
Ren Wenwen, a young post-80s woman from Jiangyou, returned to her hometown to start a business raising ostriches. After seeing initial profits, she devoted herself to building a family farm and led villagers to develop ostrich farming, striving for prosperity together.
Recently, when the reporter met Ren Wenwen in Shuikoumiao Village, Dakang Town, Jiangyou City, she was busy installing a sunshade net for a newly completed restaurant. Her capable figure and full, confident voice were the reporter's first impression of this post-80s woman.
Ren Wenwen told the reporter that she is from downtown Jiangyou. After graduating from a normal school in 2001, she worked various jobs and ran a bar and a teahouse, but business was always mediocre. In 2014, Ren Wenwen saw on a travel program that people in Thailand were raising ostriches, which stirred her desire to start a business again. People today are very open to novel things, so why not go back to her hometown to raise ostriches? Having found her entrepreneurial direction, Ren Wenwen began collecting a large amount of information about ostrich farming. She discovered that ostriches are valuable from head to toe: their skin is high-quality leather, their feathers can be used as elegant decorations, their meat is nutritious, their eggs have a delicate texture and delicious flavor, and the eggshells can even be carved and painted into handicrafts.
Acting on her plan, in September 2014, Ren Wenwen transferred 30 mu of land in Shuikoumiao Village, Dakang Town, and bought ostrich chicks to begin ostrich farming. At first, because she was unfamiliar with ostriches' living habits, Ren Wenwen took many detours. The young ostriches she bought often got sick due to "not adapting to the local environment." Ren Wenwen sought medical help everywhere and invited experts to inspect the site, discovering that the cause was damp ground and inadequate insulation. So, under the experts' guidance, Ren Wenwen renovated the pens. After careful raising, the young ostriches finally became lively and energetic. This experience made Ren Wenwen realize that these animals from desert regions are extremely sensitive to their living environment, and that raising them well is not easy. To take good care of the ostriches, Ren Wenwen stayed by their side every day, cleaning the pens and feeding them, handling every detail personally. During this time, she also visited other ostrich farms to learn from their experience.
Her hard work finally paid off. After the first batch of ostriches grew up, Ren Wenwen sold them to nearby restaurants specializing in specialty dishes and made a substantial profit. While supplying the restaurants, Ren Wenwen found that a single portion of ostrich meat could sell for several hundred yuan in a restaurant. "The terminal industry is where the profits concentrate," Ren Wenwen said. She began planning to open her own specialty restaurant. "There are many scenic spots around Dakang Town, with a certain clustering effect, so I thought of establishing a family farm that combines farming with tourism. The prospects are sure to be good," Ren Wenwen said.
In October 2016, Ren Wenwen transferred another 90 mu of land around the farm and established Jiangyou Yujia Family Farm, building an ecological industry integrating dining, leisure, and sightseeing on the basis of the ostrich breeding base. With the support of her family and the local government, Ren Wenwen invested more than 4 million yuan, built a restaurant, a fishing pond, and other facilities, renovated the environment, and introduced a number of distinctive animals. Now at Yujia Family Farm, visitors can not only watch ostriches and taste ostrich meat and egg products, but also admire novel small animals such as peacocks and guinea pigs.
At present, Ren Wenwen's family farm has been running smoothly, with a daily reception capacity of 500 people. More and more tourists come here for leisure, especially during holidays when it is hard to find a table. With the increase in visitors, raising ostriches on her own can no longer meet demand, so Ren Wenwen is planning to establish an ostrich breeding professional cooperative and encourage surrounding villagers to raise ostriches and get rich together.
"Although starting a business is hard, as long as you have a dream in your heart, I believe you can succeed through hard work," Ren Wenwen said. Whenever she encountered setbacks in her business, she always used this sentence to encourage herself.