The Vegetable King Returns Home to Start a Business, Leading Villagers to Realize the Dream of Prosperity
On February 4, amid warm applause, Liu Qiang of the Baisu Garden Fruit Professional Planting Cooperative in Yuncheng County and 9 other young people who returned home to start businesses received the "County Mayor's Entrepreneurship Award," each receiving a reward of 100,000 yuan.
Liu Qiang, just over 40 years old this year, returned home to start his business in December 2015. With the strong help and coordination of the local government departments in Yuncheng, he transferred over 1,000 mu of land and, together with partners, invested over 20 million yuan to create Shandong Province's largest connected tomato greenhouse planting base, effectively driving nearby villagers to find employment and increase their incomes close to home.
Speaking of how the business got started, Liu Qiang said that when the greenhouses were first being built, it was hard to find anyone even for odd jobs. How much future could a vegetable greenhouse have, and who would be willing to work here for odd-job pocket money?! But over the past year, the entire vegetable garden has stood before the villagers like a myth. The whole vegetable garden is a vegetable planting factory, with work to do all year round and vegetables all year round. Look, in the 16 newly built winter-warm greenhouses before the New Year, the tomato seedlings are growing green and sturdy, and on the tenth day of the first lunar month they will be transplanted into the potato greenhouses and cabbage greenhouses. By then, more than 200 people will not be able to keep up with the work. Look, the "Jujin" Chinese cabbage has already separated into five or six leaves! Speaking of the development of Baisu Garden, Brother Zhang Deyin, who is over 50 years old, is grinning from ear to ear, his face beaming, as if this vegetable garden were his own family's.
Speaking of the operations of Baisu Garden, young entrepreneur Liu Qiang said with emotion that because the tomato seedlings were planted relatively late last year, they harvested one fewer crop of tomatoes, but two crops of tomatoes still sold for more than 26 million yuan. After deducting costs, the profit was more than 10 million yuan. Seeing the encouraging results, at the end of the year the cooperative also took out nearly 10,000 yuan to distribute consolation money to more than 20 poor households nearby.
"Achieving such results in less than a year, in the relatively short time of land acquisition, greenhouse construction and planting, is very valuable. If you ask about the keys to success, they mainly came from the nanny-style service of the local government, reliable technology and order guarantees, plus the enthusiastic participation and support of the local people. That is why we achieved such good results!" Liu Qiang summarized sincerely.
Seeing the huge achievements of the vegetable base in Zhangying Town within one year, other townships in Yuncheng could not sit still either. The main leaders of Tangmiao Town visited many times to forge ties and list preferential policies. After more than a month of reporting, summarizing, inspection and experimentation, at the end of November 2016, Beijing Haonong Company decided to build a standardized green fruit and vegetable demonstration garden in Wanglaohu Village, Tangmiao Town. The planned total greenhouse area is 2,500 mu, with a total investment of 110 million yuan, to be completed in three phases. Phase I covers 1,000 mu, with an investment of 65 million yuan, introducing Israeli intelligent greenhouse technology, adopting the company's latest independently developed third-generation fruit and vegetable greenhouse results, the most advanced in China, embedding 9 patents, and building 4 groups of intelligent greenhouses, with a single connected group area of 210 mu, setting a new domestic record for the largest single greenhouse area. At present, more than 300 mu of tomatoes are growing encouragingly. This year, those who come to Wanglaohu Village to visit relatives and pay New Year calls first come here to take a look and see whether there is any work suitable for them.
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Seeing how enthusiastically his hometown supports his vegetable business, Liu Qiang said with emotion that next, as the base scale continues to expand, they will implement a brand strategy for development and strive to build a green, pollution-free brand, making the brand a green symbol of the place. At present, the Yuncheng Baisu Garden Planting Cooperative has registered two trademarks, "Shuihu Manor" and "Hongguofan," and green certification will also be obtained. In another 1-2 years, they will gradually develop 4-5 pollution-free vegetable planting bases, establish cold storage and preservation warehouses and a vegetable processing factory, gradually extend the industrial chain, and let more people benefit from modern agriculture!