Returning home to start a business is no dream: driving fellow villagers to prosperity together
"This year our cooperative will continue to expand the Gastrodia elata planting area in Donglu and Qingshui, driving more farming households out of poverty toward prosperity." He Zhanghai, chairman of the Juhe Gastrodia elata Science and Technology Cooperative in Ping'an Town, said this recently in an interview with a reporter.
He Zhanghai, 33 years old this year, was born in Shuangping Village, Ping'an. As early as 2011 he began exploring Gastrodia elata cultivation. Not only did he succeed in his own business venture, he also led his fellow villagers out of poverty toward prosperity together. Yet on the road of Gastrodia elata cultivation, He Zhanghai did not have an easy journey.
Returning home to start a business is no dream
Recalling his path of entrepreneurship, He Zhanghai has many feelings. In 2004, due to family poverty, He Zhanghai went south to Guangdong to work, rising step by step from an ordinary worker to a factory supervisor. He did this for more than 10 years. Although his annual income was 70,000 to 80,000 yuan, his parents always felt that working away from home was not a long-term solution.
More than 10 years of working life honed He Zhanghai's keen sense for business opportunities. In 2011, He Zhanghai returned to his hometown and learned that the prospects for growing Chinese medicinal herbs were promising. After researching market conditions, he decided to give up the opportunity to earn money working away from home and realize his dream of returning home to start a business.
"To be honest, working outside, you spend your whole life working for others. The policies now are good, so I just wanted to come back and start my own business. After thinking it over, I chose to grow Gastrodia elata," He Zhanghai said.
Exploring the path of Gastrodia elata cultivation
After deciding to grow Gastrodia elata, He Zhanghai took the savings he had accumulated from working and traveled to Hubei, Shaanxi, Yunnan and other places to learn the cultivation techniques for Wuhong Gastrodia elata. Through a year of diligent study and exploration, he finally mastered Gastrodia elata cultivation techniques and decided to return home to run trials.
"Gastrodia elata is suited to growing in a cool and moist environment. Grown indoors, it does not need fertilizer; the main thing is to control humidity well. Too dry and it affects growth, while too much humidity causes the tubers to rot." He Zhanghai explained that he and his partners searched in many places for a suitable planting site, and finally found an abandoned toll station in Wanzhou. They bought Wuhong Gastrodia elata seeds back from Hubei, and after preparing enough sand, wood, Armillaria mellea and other materials, they began his entrepreneurial path of Gastrodia elata cultivation.
But things did not go as hoped. Because the temperature during the dog days of summer that year was hard to control, most of the Gastrodia elata died from drought, and he lost everything. But He Zhanghai was not willing to give up. The lesson of failure made He Zhanghai understand even more clearly that he had to master more scientific cultivation methods. With the help of relatives and friends, He Zhanghai took the tens of thousands of yuan he had borrowed and went to Hanzhong, Shaanxi, to continue learning the basic principles of Gastrodia elata cultivation, as well as techniques for cultivating Gastrodia elata seeds and preparing Armillaria mellea mycelium.
"Since outdoor temperatures are hard to control, could we use caves, which are warm in winter and cool in summer and damp, to grow Gastrodia elata?" He Zhanghai thought of the many abandoned caves in his hometown.
A few days later, He Zhanghai invited Wu Qikui, a Gastrodia elata cultivation expert from the Wanzhou Agriculture Committee, to his hometown to inspect and guide. Through testing the cave, it was proved that the cave's natural conditions met the basic conditions for Gastrodia elata growth. He Zhanghai also bought Wuhong hybrid Gastrodia elata seeds and fungal spawn back from Hanzhong, and restarted trial cultivation of Gastrodia elata in the cave.
"Using the cave for three-dimensional cultivation really worked. In 2012 we harvested a total of 5.3 tons of fresh Gastrodia elata, worth more than 600,000 yuan. Not only that, after testing by the national authoritative department, the gastrodin content of the cultivated Gastrodia elata reached 0.46%, 2.3 times the national standard." He Zhanghai said proudly.
Giving back to neighbors and prospering together
"Getting rich alone does not count as being rich. I only feel at ease when I see my fellow villagers become rich." This was He Zhanghai's inner thought. So he secretly made up his mind to pass on Gastrodia elata cultivation techniques to his fellow villagers and lead more people onto the road to prosperity.
In 2012, with the support of the local government, He Zhanghai invested 800,000 yuan and led the registration and establishment of the "Yunyang County Juhe Gastrodia elata Science and Technology Cooperative," providing Gastrodia elata cultivation techniques and seeds to growers free of charge. Over several years, the cooperative has planted 3,000 mu of Wuhong hybrid Gastrodia elata in Ping'an, Qixia, Shuangtu and other places, adopting a cooperative model of "enterprise + base + farming households" with unified seed supply, unified management, and unified purchasing and sales. The expected annual output of Gastrodia elata is about 15 tons, with an output value of 1.5 million yuan.
With passion and unremitting effort, He Zhanghai achieved success in Gastrodia elata cultivation and received many honors. Now he is leading his fellow villagers to build on science and technology and embark on the road to prosperity through entrepreneurship.