Money-Making Beans Help Wang Guochang onto the Path of Increased Income

Whenever the second day of the second lunar month comes around, every household in Qinghai has the custom of roasting broad beans (fava beans).

On February 25, on the eve of "Eryue'er" (the second day of the second lunar month), Wang Guochang of the Huangzhong Jindou Planting and Breeding Cooperative brought carefully packaged "roasted beans" from his hometown to the "Jindou" Culture and Art Festival for promotion.

"Made by traditional methods, packaged in a modern way, sold online." This is Wang Guochang's approach to "roasted beans."

Having grown up in the mountainous area of Huangzhong County in the provincial capital Xining, Wang Guochang knows well the hardships of farmers' lives. After graduating from university, he worked in the tourism industry for 11 years. Just as his tourism career was flourishing, Wang Guochang was not satisfied with this alone. Under the new normal of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation," he, with a strong "rural complex," resolutely resigned from his stable job in the city and chose to return to his hometown to start a business.

With the support and encouragement of the Haizigou Township government, Wang Guochang saw the advantages of growing broad beans and developing a broad bean industry in Haizigou.

Haizigou Township is located in a shallow mountain area, with long sunshine hours and a short frost-free period, and the fertilizer applied is mostly organic fertilizer. The broad beans and peas produced there are characterized by plump beans, high protein content, relatively low sugar content, and low fat content, making them pure natural green organic products; in addition, local villagers have a 30-year history of "roasting beans," and the roasted broad beans and peas are crisp and fragrant, with an excellent taste.

Wang Guochang said that the broad beans of Haizigou Township are very famous, but not many farmers have made their fortunes from them. If the industrial chain is extended and the added value of the products is increased to form a distinctive industry of deep processing of broad beans, then it would not only be a business opportunity with boundless "money" prospects, but also help local farmers escape poverty and become prosperous, achieving two goals at once.

He acted as soon as he said it. In 2015, after returning to Zongbao Village in Haizigou Township, Wang Guochang founded Huangzhong Guochang Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., leading local farmers in planting, breeding, and agricultural product processing, with a focus on in-depth development of broad bean cultivation and processing, and built a 2,000-square-meter broad bean processing workshop. During this period, he secured an entrepreneurship loan and applied for the "Zongbao Jindou" trademark. In 2016, he also established the Huangzhong Jindou Planting and Breeding Cooperative, cooperating with farmers in Haizigou Township to develop contract farming, purchasing broad beans grown by farmers, and has now formed an industrial chain of planting, production, supply, and sales.

The tiny broad bean, in Wang Guochang's hands, has magically become a "money-making bean," and has also driven poor households in Haizigou out of poverty and toward moderate prosperity.

As a member of a farming family in Zongbao Village, Haizigou Township, Wang Hongchang, who never attended university, did not want to repeat the life path of his parents' generation. For this reason, he once worked as a migrant laborer around Xining, but his annual income was less than 20,000 yuan. For Wang Hongchang, who has elderly parents above and children below, life was only barely manageable. After joining the cooperative, he began working near his home, and also grew broad beans himself, earning about 50,000 yuan a year, while still being able to care for his elderly parents and children, which truly set his mind at ease.

Wang Guochang said that in order to ensure the purchase of high-quality broad beans, his purchase price was higher than that of other buyers. This news spread through Haizigou like a spring breeze. Many farming households expanded their broad bean planting area, and many farmers from surrounding villages also began to join the ranks of broad bean growers. To make things convenient for farmers, Wang Guochang also set up purchasing stations in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County and other places, serving farmers in every link from planting, contract signing, pricing, and purchasing, and safeguarding their vital interests.

With the rapid development of the "Jindou" distinctive industry, Haizigou Township also continuously expanded the scale of broad bean planting. In 2016, the township's broad bean planting area reached 687 hectares, accounting for 19% of the township's total planting area, an increase of 9.5% over the previous year, with an annual output of 1,300 tons, driving 26 farming households, including 6 poor households, and achieving sales revenue of 1.2 million yuan. The broad bean marketing industrial chain was basically perfected, and the economic benefits of the "Jindou" industry steadily improved.

Thanks to his achievements in the broad bean industry, Wang Guochang was named one of the 10th National Rural Wealth-Building Leaders by the Communist Youth League Central Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China.

Talking about his next plans, Wang Guochang said, we will continue to expand the broad bean planting area, develop our own planting base, and transform Haizigou Township's original scattered planting and scattered sales of broad beans into specialized, large-scale sales. At the same time, we will vigorously develop e-commerce to let Haizigou broad beans reach farther places.