Veteran Zhang Jie returns home to lead villagers to common prosperity
A 14-year military career forged his character of resilience, endurance of hardship and dedication; 3 years on the entrepreneurial path fulfilled his conviction of leading villagers to common prosperity. He is Zhang Jie of Lidatang Village, Xiaoxinji Township, Mengcheng County, a veteran who came out of the countryside.
Recently, the reporter came to Lidatang Village, where Zhang Jie was guiding farmers in feed mixing and disease prevention at a newly built breeding farm in the village. His own farm is not far away, covering 11 mu of land and quite sizable.
Zhang Jie is 37 years old this year. He once yearned for the military and became a soldier. During 14 years of service, he earned the honorary title of Outstanding Soldier and was awarded a Third-Class Merit. Though life in the military was hard, it also forged his resilient, hardship-enduring character.
In 2013, because his parents were getting older and in poor health, Zhang Jie applied for early retirement. To ease the resettlement pressure on the local government, he voluntarily asked not to be assigned a job and to start his own business. "At that time I secretly resolved in my heart that, as a farmer's child who came out of the countryside, I would take root, sprout and grow in this fertile rural land," Zhang Jie recalled.
After investigation, Zhang Jie finally decided to realize his entrepreneurial dream in breeding. Registering a company and building a breeding farm, Zhang Jie turned the dream into reality in one sustained effort, and under his careful management the farm got onto the right track in an orderly way. In 2014, his Anhui Weijie Poultry Industry Co., Ltd. was rated as a "Bozhou City Breeding Demonstration Community."
To extend the industrial chain, in 2017 Zhang Jie introduced a comprehensive circular economy demonstration base comprising a Wanxin white goose production base and a 1000-ton bio-organic fertilizer plant, forming a company + base breeding model that ensured the healthy development of the breeding industry.
On the road of exploring prosperity through breeding, Zhang Jie never forgot to lead the villagers to prosperity together. He actively guided villagers to join the breeding industry, implementing unified supply of chicks, unified feed mixing, unified disease prevention and unified sales for breeders, greatly reducing the risks for breeders and driving the rapid development of the livestock and poultry breeding industry in the region.
As for the future, Zhang Jie, full of a soldier's pride, said: "We must roll up our sleeves and work hard, throw open our arms and strive with all our might! We are committed to building a first-class laying hen breeding enterprise in the whole city and even the whole province."