High-mountain vegetables let Pan Aihua get a taste of the sweet rewards of farming

"I have been growing high-mountain vegetables for many years, constantly exploring and figuring things out, looking for planting models and varieties suited to local conditions." In Lingkou Village, Shaolian Township, She County, Pan Aihua is a major local vegetable grower and the head of the She County Shaolian High-Mountain Vegetable Professional Cooperative. He began growing high-mountain vegetables in 2004, and has now been on this entrepreneurial path for 13 years.

In Lingkou Village, not many villagers grow vegetables. Pan Aihua started out as a laying-hen farmer, raising free-range local chickens on the high mountain. He was still very young then and did not have much of a concept of entrepreneurship. He raised chickens simply because he felt the local terrain and mountain conditions were suitable for free-range rearing, so he gave it a try. A few years later, considering the risks of chicken farming and some issues with sales channels, Pan Aihua hit on the idea of growing high-mountain vegetables. After conducting market research and learning from others elsewhere, in 2004 he transferred more than 30 mu of village land to grow tomatoes. "At the time, very few people grew tomatoes, and the local market's tomatoes mainly relied on outside supply. In the first two years after I started, the tomatoes I grew were very well received by the market and demand exceeded supply." That is how Pan Aihua did things, following market demand and trying things step by step.

In 2008, having tasted the sweet rewards of growing tomatoes, Pan Aihua registered the She County Shaolian High-Mountain Vegetable Professional Cooperative. Under his influence, dozens of local villagers joined the cooperative and grew high-mountain vegetables together. The scale grew larger, but as more people grew tomatoes, the price advantage disappeared. In early 2009, through an introduction from a friend, Pan Aihua learned that Hangzhou peppers were very popular in out-of-town markets but scarce in the local market. So he promptly adjusted his planting direction and introduced new varieties of Hangzhou peppers and grew them in large quantities. From 2009 through 2011, Hangzhou peppers brought him extremely high economic returns. Thanks to their geographical advantages, high-mountain vegetables are better in quality than field vegetables, and they do not require a large investment, or even steel-frame greenhouses, to produce top-quality off-season vegetables. Precisely because of this, Pan Aihua went farther and farther along this entrepreneurial road, and the road grew wider and wider.

By 2012, because of market influences, the returns from Hangzhou peppers were no longer as good as before, so Pan Aihua started thinking again. That year, he also introduced high-quality sweet corn and green bean seedlings, and planted them in combination. Unexpectedly, the market response was also very good. By 2014, his own planting scale had reached more than 60 mu, and he registered Huaxin Family Farm. He not only grew high-mountain vegetables, but also did primary processing of chili peppers and dried bamboo shoots. There is plenty of bamboo shoot in the mountains, so he bought it up, did primary processing, and resold it. Today, the total planting area of Pan Aihua's Shaolian High-Mountain Vegetable Professional Cooperative exceeds 200 mu. With the support of the local agricultural department, every year part of it is also used to grow vegetables for the summer shortage period. He says that whatever the market demands, he grows. In the future, he will continue working hard in the direction of primary processing, striving to grow bigger and stronger.