Seafood Expert Returns Home to Grow Peaches and Becomes "Peach Commander"

Meitian Village in Xiandu Township, Liandu District, was once an extremely poor village with only 1 jiao and 8 fen in its collective account. Today, the annual per capita income of the villagers has exceeded 15,000 yuan, and the village has been recognized as one of Lishui's first batch of "Most Beautiful Village" demonstration villages and a Lishui Municipal Ecological Civilization Village. As the saying goes, for a train to run fast, it all depends on the locomotive to lead the way. When talking about their happy life today, the villagers all say in unison: "We owe it to the leader in our village who never fusses over personal gain or loss." That leader is Zhou Binglin, Party branch secretary of Meitian Village.

"When I was first elected Party branch secretary and village committee director, the village still owed quite a bit of money." The 55-year-old Zhou Binglin still remembers clearly what the village was like when he first took office. Because Meitian Village is located in a remote area, its economic development was greatly constrained.

At the age of 25, Zhou Binglin left home to go into business. After many years of hard work, the "Binglin Seafood" he operated had already gained some reputation in Lishui. In 2007, he began to think about changing the village's backward situation: Many villages elsewhere are getting richer and richer, and the villagers' lives are getting better and better, yet our village is still the same as before. Can I do something for the village?

Meitian Village's altitude, soil and climate are all suitable for growing peach trees, but due to limited transportation, the village's peaches had a bumper harvest year after year without a good payoff. If you want to get rich, first build roads. Zhou Binglin and village officials actively sought road construction projects while mobilizing the whole village to donate money to build roads. He himself took the lead by donating more than 100,000 yuan. Spurred on by Zhou Binglin, the villagers contributed money if they had it and labor if they did not, and one farm road after another was opened into the large orchards, greatly facilitating the cultivation, picking and sale of peaches.

Once the roads were open, Zhou Binglin began to consider how to improve the quality of the peaches and help the villagers increase production and income. He took villagers to places such as Huangyan in Taizhou to learn from local growing experience, and invited agricultural experts to give lectures to the villagers and guide them in planting.

When the fruit quality improved, the price naturally sold higher. "Now the village's annual peach output can reach over a million jin. Because the peaches are of good quality, the purchase price is about 1 yuan higher than in other places." Zhou Binglin said that every year when the village's peaches hit the market, they become a "hot favorite" that out-of-town buyers scramble to purchase.

Zhou Binglin, this "seafood expert," has now become the "Peach Commander" in the eyes of the villagers. It is precisely this spirit of doing practical things for the people and solving their worries that has made Zhou Binglin a good branch secretary recognized by the villagers. As a Communist Party member, Zhou Binglin has interpreted "serving the people" through practical action.