Farmer stops growing corn and switches to peppers, earning hundreds of thousands a year to become the Pepper King

Farmers no longer go out to work as migrant laborers; growing traditional crops at home is simply no longer a viable path. In recent years, the price of corn, which farmers like to grow, has kept falling, leaving many farmers in a dilemma. In rural areas, without independently developing other industries, relying only on growing corn and rice is barely enough to feed oneself for a year, and getting rich is very difficult. Moreover, many rural areas in China are mostly located in mountainous regions, where traditional crops cannot be planted and harvested on a large scale, which is also a problem for farmers. If farmers want to get rich, they must develop other new industries to have any chance of increasing production and income. In Yujian Village, Tai'an Town, there is a farmer named Lai Zhugang who grows Sichuan pepper in the village, developing a new model and earning hundreds of thousands a year.

In 2012, Brother Lai invested 700,000 yuan, transferred 100 mu of land, and planted Sichuan pepper. This pepper is called 'Jiuyeqing' (Nine-Leaf Green), currently the best high-quality Sichuan pepper variety in China. Jiuyeqing Sichuan pepper is both fragrant and numbing, with high yield and an early market season, easy to manage and easy to store. The soil and climate of Tongnan are very suitable for planting it.

Brother Lai, without holding back, did the math for us. Brother Lai planted 100 mu of Sichuan pepper, with about 90 pepper trees per mu. At 20 jin per tree, one mu can produce at least 1,800 jin of fresh peppers. At the current market price of 9 yuan per jin, 1,800 jin comes to 16,200 yuan. After deducting land rent, labor, transport, fertilizer and other expenses, one mu earns 8,000 yuan. In one year, just from growing Sichuan pepper, he can earn hundreds of thousands a year, and it is a sure thing! Brother Lai led the villagers to plant 600 mu of Sichuan pepper, adopting a "company + farmers" business model, driving 45 nearby households to grow peppers and get rich. Locally, Lai Zhugang is known as the "King of Sichuan Pepper."

Now Brother Lai has also started raising free-range chickens under the pepper trees. This is a great idea: free-range raising guarantees the quality of the chickens, and the insects in the pepper tree plot can also be eliminated, so it is a double income. Relying on the quality of the free-range chickens, he sells them to local hotels and farm restaurants, where they are very popular. Now he has also led other villagers to raise free-range chickens under the pepper trees, and farmers' average annual income has increased by more than 6,000 yuan. Brother Lai's Sichuan pepper is ordered directly by people who come to look at it in person, and together with the new model of raising free-range chickens under the pepper trees, Brother Lai earns over a million yuan a year.