Small earthworms help young man Yue Chuan from Baodi, Tianjin, get rich

Yue Chuan, a demobilized young man from Baodi District, Tianjin, spent eight years, relying on an unyielding tenacity, completing his transformation from an unemployed youth to a leader who owns a breeding farm and a cooperative, and has helped more than seventeen breeding households start businesses and get rich.

A few days ago, after just signing a seedling supply contract worth more than 1.7 million yuan with Jingmen City, Hubei, Yue Chuan, manager of the Tianjin Jinlong Earthworm Breeding Farm, began planning deeper cooperation with local breeding farms.

Yue Chuan said: "Signing the contract is only one aspect. I plan to take a 30 percent stake locally to engage in organic agriculture, not just simply breeding earthworms, but also making use of the market space for added products like worm castings."

Eight years ago, Yue Chuan, who had just been discharged from the military, came up with the idea of starting a business after failing many times to find a job. But without funds and without technology, what could he do? Just as he was mired in distress, an experience of taking a walk by the river gave him inspiration.

Yue Chuan said: "I found many people fishing by the river. In recent years the fishing tackle industry really has been booming. If I could do something in the fishing tackle industry, then there would definitely be money to be made. A flash came to my mind: I could raise some earthworms."

It was this fleeting thought that started his first entrepreneurial journey. But when he excitedly told his family about his idea, apart from his father's one vote of support, all the other family members opposed it.

Yue Chuan's father, Yue Guangming, said: "I wasn't too optimistic either, but it's rare for him to have this kind of idea and this kind of entrepreneurial spirit, so I let the kid go out and try, to see what he's capable of."

Not knowing breeding techniques, Yue Chuan collected all kinds of professional materials from the internet. With no money to buy a transport vehicle, he and his father used an agricultural tricycle to deliver goods every day.

Yue Chuan said: "At that time, in order to haul the raw materials used for breeding earthworms, we had to go west to Dakoutun Town every day to haul cow dung. Because the dung was loaded by hand, each haul took nearly a whole day."

In order to find sales channels, Yue Chuan rode an electric bike, carrying two packs of earthworms, and traveled to every fishing tackle shop, big and small, in the city and the countryside.

Zhang Xiaoping, owner of Xiaoping Fishing Tackle Shop, said: "He came many times, and I was moved by him. I said I'd trust you once, so you can leave them here and we'll give it a try."

In this way, relying on tenacity, Yue Chuan knocked open the doors of one fishing tackle shop after another. To dispel customers' concerns, no matter wind or rain, severe cold or intense heat, he insisted on delivering goods to customers on time, never running out of stock, and always honored his promise to "compensate for losses if problems are found."

Zhang Yunhua, owner of Yugong Outdoor Shop, said: "Anglers all say his earthworms are quite good to use."

The market gradually opened up, and the breeding scale expanded accordingly. Yue Chuan said: "I will further improve the upstream and downstream industrial chain of earthworm breeding, and deeply tap the market space of ecological organic agriculture."

Over eight years, the tricycle used for the initial deliveries became a box truck; transport expanded from a single logistics mode to rail, sea and air; and the market expanded from urban and rural Baodi to Jiamusi in the north, Shanghai in the south, and even opened up overseas markets.