Turning small peanuts into a big industry, she led the villagers onto the road to prosperity
From an ordinary rural woman, to being elected by the villagers as director of a peanut planting cooperative, and then to becoming the leader who brought prosperity to the whole village and even the whole township, Zhou Yujie, director of the peanut planting cooperative of Hailiban Village, Jiumiao Town, Fumeng County, made a dazzling transformation and emerged from her cocoon in just over ten years.
Zhou Yujie is a native of Jiumiao. In 2003, she scraped together money from relatives to buy her first tricycle, went to the countryside to buy miscellaneous grains, and then hauled them to the market to sell. Whether in the scorching heat of summer or the biting cold of winter, she left early and returned late, and after working hard for more than a year, she finally earned back the cost of the tricycle and paid off all her debts.
By chance, while at a friend's home in Yi County, Zhou Yujie discovered that many people there were engaged in the peanut industry. After careful thought, Zhou Yujie felt this was a good business opportunity. But at the time, her fellow villagers did not dare to plant peanuts on a large scale, fearing they would not be able to sell them if they grew too many. Once she had made up her mind, she acted. Bold but careful, Zhou Yujie first took a master as her teacher and systematically learned the relevant knowledge and precautions for planting peanuts, then raised funds, introduced improved seeds, and busily set to work in her own fields with great vigor. When the harvest season arrived, and the villagers saw that Zhou Yujie's family had a bumper peanut harvest and made considerable profits, they followed her example and began planting peanuts too. Today, the hills and fields of Hailiban Village are covered with peanut plots, the area has reached scale, and yields have risen. Buyers come to the village to purchase, and the villagers have tasted the sweetness of planting peanuts.
Under Zhou Yujie's leadership, peanut planting in Hailiban Village has become increasingly professional and increasingly mechanized. In particular, with the widespread application of many new yield-increasing techniques such as plastic film mulching and formula fertilization, as well as mechanical harvesting and threshing, both yields have increased and labor has been saved.
"Planting peanuts now is easy and profitable." Speaking of peanut planting, villager Yin Xiaosheng wore a joyful smile. "In spring, as long as there is one good soaking rain, an ordinary four-wheel tractor can ridge, fertilize, control pests, and drop seeds all in one go, and the two of us can plant more than 10 mu a day. Peanut management is also very easy. After sowing, one pass of herbicide with a machine and no weeds grow. Harvesting peanuts in autumn is even simpler, mechanical harvesting is especially convenient. Peanut straw is top-quality feed, used to feed donkeys, cattle, and sheep, and the shells are crushed to feed pigs. Thanks to Zhou Yujie introducing advanced techniques and high-quality varieties back then. In our hearts, Zhou Yujie is the teacher of peanut planting!"
Zhou Yujie, who was wholeheartedly determined to make the peanut planting industry bigger and stronger, bought another six-wheel vehicle in 2008 to improve transport capacity, hired more than a dozen employees, and introduced advanced equipment to go into the peanut sales and processing business. Under Zhou Yujie's leadership, many farmers in Hailiban Village became peanut brokers. Zhou Yujie bought peanuts from farmers at high prices and increased their value through processing. After several years, under Zhou Yujie's painstaking management, the Hailiban Village peanut planting cooperative had become a large company integrating peanut production, processing, and transport, shipping out more than 1,200 tons of shelled peanuts and more than 1,000 tons of peanut kernels each year. To meet the needs of development, Zhou Yujie invested more than 500,000 yuan to build three peanut processing plants, which not only provided dozens of jobs for the villagers, but also brought the cooperative huge economic returns.
The scale of peanut planting in Hailiban Village has grown larger and larger, and it has now become an important peanut distribution center for Jiumiao and surrounding townships. Merchants from many places in southern Liaoning, western Liaoning, and elsewhere set up purchasing points in Hailiban Village early every year. The peanuts of Hailiban Village are already sold far beyond the Great Wall and across the length and breadth of the country. "Leading all the villagers onto the road to prosperity is my greatest wish." As the interview drew to a close, Zhou Yujie said this with full confidence.