Once impoverished, he became a cooperative leader by raising porcupines, leading villagers to prosperity together
Lin Haidong of Wangwai Village, Dongfang, was once an impoverished household, and now he has become a cooperative leader, leading villagers to raise porcupines——
Hands-on and heart-in, he became an "expert"; on the road to prosperity, he serves as the "steward"
On January 20, Lin Haidong, chairman of the Wangwai Porcupine Breeding Professional Cooperative in the Huaqiao Economic Zone of Dongfang City, briefed reporters on porcupine breeding.
On January 20, Lin Haidong, chairman of the Wangwai Porcupine Breeding Professional Cooperative in the Huaqiao Economic Zone of Dongfang City, briefed reporters on porcupine breeding.
A model of poverty alleviation
"Raising porcupines requires watching them 24 hours a day to prevent them from fighting, and the pens must be kept clean." January 20 was the Lunar New Year's Little New Year, and Lin Haidong arrived early in the morning at the pig shed at the west end of the village, sweeping the floor while explaining to impoverished households the precautions for raising porcupines, every bit the half-expert. Over the past year of poverty alleviation, he not only successfully lifted himself out of poverty through his own diligent hands, but was also elected chairman of the porcupine breeding cooperative, becoming a leader on the villagers' road to prosperity.
Lin Haidong's home is in Wangwai Village, the most remote village in the Huaqiao Economic Zone of Dongfang City. In 2016, Dongfang City listed Wangwai Village as a whole-village advancement poverty alleviation village, helping 120 impoverished households develop characteristic industries such as chicken farming and vegetable growing. Lin Haidong, who was interested in planting and breeding, began to focus on developing his business.
Last May, the assisting unit distributed 320 chicks, and he insisted on rising early and working late every day, driving the chickens into the village's mango grove to range freely, letting them move more and eat insects. Three months later, his "mango chickens" sold out, earning a profit of more than 15,000 yuan. Having earned his "first pot of gold," Lin Haidong brought in his younger sister as a partner, went to the bank repeatedly, applied for a 40,000-yuan microloan, and built a shed at his doorstep to raise more than 70 pigs. After this batch of pigs was sent to market, he netted 21,000 yuan.
At the poverty alleviation TV night school every Friday, Lin Haidong was always the one who listened most attentively. The TV said that poverty alleviation industries should combine long-term and short-term approaches, and he was inspired, consolidating land to expand his planting scale, planting 25 mu of pumpkins, 13 mu of eggplants, and 4 mu of peppers, all of which yielded a bumper harvest.
With a poverty alleviation model in the village, the impoverished households saw it with their own eyes and greatly admired him. Last October, the Wangwai Village porcupine breeding project landed and blossomed; the government helped build more than 1,000 sq m of standardized pig sheds, purchased 714 porcupine piglets, and prepared to carry out centralized breeding according to the "government + cooperative + impoverished households" model. Who would serve as the cooperative's chairman and lead everyone out of poverty? At the democratic appraisal meeting, the 120 impoverished households unanimously raised their hands to elect Lin Haidong.
"Lin Haidong is a capable man at planting and breeding, and we trust him," said Fu Caiming, an impoverished household. It was precisely on this trust that Lin Haidong, while busy at home growing vegetables and raising chickens, also took charge of all the cooperative's affairs, leading impoverished households to raise porcupines. When impoverished households did not understand breeding techniques, he brought in technicians to conduct training in the village; when raising porcupines purely on feed was too costly, he led the impoverished households, driving three-wheeled carts to nearby villages to purchase pumpkins and corn door-to-door to serve as the porcupines' staple food. Through the efforts of Lin Haidong and the other impoverished households, this batch of porcupines had grown from three or four jin each when newly purchased to more than twenty jin now. This September, they are expected to produce more than 600 offspring, and after deducting costs, this can bring impoverished households a profit of 450,000 yuan.
"The government gave us a pull, and we must also get moving ourselves." This is a sentence Lin Haidong says to everyone he meets.
At the start of the new year, not far from the porcupine shed, another 30 mu of open land was staked out and fenced off. "This is our cooperative's new project. This year the government is supporting the expansion of the poverty alleviation industry's scale, and here we will build a chicken farm and a five-toed pig breeding farm." Gazing at the "new battlefield" before him, Lin Haidong was full of confidence.