Huang Faxiang, the "Orchid Prince" of Dongfang, builds a new orchid base to help villagers become shareholders and prosper
Huang Faxiang inspecting the growth of "Mokara orchids" at the base.
"You have to care for them as tenderly as you would your own beloved, without the slightest carelessness." Although he is already a very well-known orchid expert locally, enjoys the reputation of "Orchid Prince," and runs a cooperative that is thriving, 34-year-old Huang Faxiang remains as humble as he was when he first started his business. Apart from going out for study tours, he spends most of his time "holed up" at the cooperative, working alongside the workers to water and fertilize the orchids and carefully tend every single plant.
Relying on his solid orchid-growing skills and his constant exploration and research in breeding orchid varieties, Huang Faxiang has fulfilled the promise he made back then: to help the villagers who joined the cooperative get rich. However, Huang Faxiang is not satisfied with this alone. He is now planning another big project: building a new orchid base in Baoshang Village, Gancheng Town, Dongfang City. He says the new orchid base will let more villagers become shareholders and set them on the road to prosperity.
New orchid base to bring more villagers wealth
Leaving the Dongfang city area and driving along the West Coast of Hainan Line to the sign for the Tongtian Branch of the Daoxi Forest Farm, then turning onto a small side road next to it, you arrive at the Canaan Orchid Planting Farmers' Cooperative in Dongfang City. Huang Faxiang is the chairman of this cooperative, which covers 25 mu and houses more than a thousand orchid varieties of all kinds.
Huang Faxiang treats the cooperative as his home. Apart from going out for study tours, he eats and sleeps almost entirely there. Every morning when he wakes up early, he runs over to the base and walks several laps around it. Only after seeing with his own eyes that the orchids are growing well can he feel at ease. The workers have noticed that recently Huang Faxiang has been spending much less time at the cooperative than before. After asking around, they learned that Huang Faxiang was busy preparing for a new orchid base that would go into production in two months.
"Quite a few villagers have already taken shares in the orchid base that is about to be built, and we are also working to get more villagers to join. This is not just a matter for me personally or for the cooperative; it concerns the future income of the villagers who join, so we must pay extra attention to it," Huang Faxiang said.
According to Huang Faxiang, the new orchid planting base is located in Baoshang Village, Gancheng Town, covers 70 mu, involves an investment of 7 million yuan, and is expected to go into production in June this year.
"At that time we will provide shareholder villagers with support in orchid planting techniques, fertilizer, pesticides and sales channels, and once the base generates income, we will share the dividends with the villagers," Huang Faxiang said. He is very confident about this "farmer + cooperative" model, mainly because of the current market situation in which orchids are in short supply. "The Canaan Cooperative's orchids are basically grown to order, so there is no need to worry at all about the prospects of the new orchid base."
Huang Faxiang also revealed that, in addition to the orchid base about to be built and put into production, he is also working hard to expand orchid bases to more townships in the city, bring in more villagers as shareholders, and help villagers get rich through orchids.
Hardships in starting his business made him more grateful
Huang Faxiang is from Baoshang Village, Gancheng Town, Dongfang City, an entrepreneur who came out of the countryside. Through his down-to-earth hard work, willingness to endure hardship and dedication to research, this rural boy who did not even finish junior high school eventually became a well-known local orchid expert.
Huang Faxiang's family was relatively poor when he was a child. After dropping out of school, he worked for a boss who ran a horticulture business. During that time, he not only came into contact with the orchids that would later change his life, but also truly felt the warm care of his elders.
"I could not have achieved what I have today without the people who helped me along the way as I was growing up. I hope to do what I can to help more villagers who are struggling in life," Huang Faxiang said. He had earlier lived for two years in Tuoya Village, Tian'an Township. There, he had the good fortune to come into contact with orchids for the first time and was deeply attracted by their beauty. From that time on, he secretly resolved that he would work with orchids in the future. So, in addition to going up the mountains to collect orchids, he also bought relevant books to read and taught himself orchid cultivation skills. During those two years, the warm-hearted villagers freed him from worries and allowed him to devote himself wholeheartedly to growing and cultivating orchids.
After leaving Tuoya Village, Huang Faxiang went alone to Haikou and opened an orchid shop near East Lake. During that time, he had the good fortune to meet a senior figure with extremely high attainments in orchids and received help from him. In pursuit of greater development in orchids, Huang Faxiang finally decided to return to his hometown and start his entrepreneurial path anew, beginning with orchid cultivation.
Dongfang's uniquely favorable climate conditions are very suitable for orchid growth. Through Huang Faxiang's efforts, his relatives and friends set aside 200 sq m of land for him to grow orchids.
"Because of insufficient funds, I ran into the problem of having no money to buy seedlings many times when I first started my business." Like many entrepreneurs, difficulties often came one after another, but Huang Faxiang did not give up. He persevered in the end and expanded his orchid cultivation from 200 sq m to 25 mu.
After 17 years of painstaking management and research by Huang Faxiang, the orchid varieties cultivated by the Canaan Cooperative now sell well in markets both on and off the island. Some buyers even place orders a year in advance, and some tourists come to visit specifically because of its reputation.
Huang Faxiang inspecting the growth of "air plants."
Unity brings the cooperative glory
From 2000 to 2012, Huang Faxiang's footprints covered the deep mountains and old forests and famous mountains and rivers of cities and counties across the province, such as Wuzhishan, Jianfengling, Limushan, Diaoluoshan and Dongshanling, establishing a tropical orchid germplasm nursery and collecting and preserving more than a thousand orchid varieties from home and abroad.
Hard work pays off. The "Dongfang Hongxia" orchid variety cultivated by the Canaan Cooperative has obtained an international patent. In addition, the Canaan Cooperative has 10 more orchid varieties applying for patents.
At the Canaan Cooperative base, a new face has recently appeared: air plants. "This is another new flower plant variety introduced by our cooperative besides orchids. It can be hung directly in midair with rope, and usually only needs a little water. It does not require much effort to care for." The market for air plants is quite good, and Huang Faxiang plans to grow several hundred thousand hanging plants at the Canaan Cooperative this year.
As for why the orchids grown and cultivated by the Canaan Cooperative are so popular, Huang Faxiang says confidently that it is the result of constantly innovating to meet market demand. For example, autumn dendrobiums, cattleyas, flame orchids, Mokara orchids and dense-flowered dendrobiums are all flagship orchid varieties of the Canaan Cooperative. Among them, orders for autumn dendrobiums even reach four to five million yuan a year. Today, the Canaan Cooperative has achieved considerable development on the orchid path and has also become a calling card for Dongfang in orchid cultivation.
In fact, the Canaan Cooperative also encountered many setbacks during its development. When he first started his business, in order to open up sales channels, Huang Faxiang often took orchid samples to flower markets across the country to promote them. At first, customers were not optimistic about them. Huang Faxiang had a flash of inspiration and decided to first provide orchids for buyers to sell, and only collect payment after they were sold. Unexpectedly, this method really worked. Coupled with the good quality of the orchid varieties, the Canaan Cooperative gradually opened up the market.