Konjac cultivation helps farmers increase income and achieve prosperity
Zhong Guolin is the chairman of the Huitong County Qunyi Konjac Professional Cooperative, the general manager of Hunan Bojia Magic Agriculture Technology Co., Ltd., and also a director of the China Konjac Association. The 450-mu konjac standardized demonstration base she founded has been awarded the title of Hunan Province "Women's Modern Agricultural Science and Technology Demonstration Base" and one of Hunan Province's first batch of "Under-forest Economy Demonstration Bases", and in 2016 it was recognized by the State Forestry Administration as a "National Under-forest Economy and Green Industry Base Serving Targeted Poverty Alleviation". She herself was also rated as a "Woman Merit Model" of Huaihua City. Recently, the reporter approached Zhong Guolin to learn about her entrepreneurial story.
Thinking of her hometown, she returned without hesitation to start a business
In 2009, inspired by "entrepreneurship for all", Zhong Guolin, who had worked away from home for 15 years, resolutely returned to her hometown to start a business. In 2012, while working in the orchid industry, she saw on CCTV-7 that konjac could be made into fully degradable mulch film, and immediately set off to inspect and study across the country.
In 2013, Zhong Guolin purchased more than 100 tons of seed corms and established a 450-mu standardized demonstration base for konjac improved-variety breeding in the Huitong Forestry Bureau Seed Orchard. In March of the same year, she registered and established the Huitong County Qunyi Konjac Professional Cooperative, and in December she injected capital to establish Hunan Bojia Magic Agriculture Technology Co., Ltd., adopting the business model of "company + cooperative (poverty-alleviation village) + base + farmer households (poor population)". It implements unified industrial planning, unified supply of seedlings, unified technical training, and unified product buyback, signs product buyback contracts with growers, opens up contract farming, and forms an integrated industrial pattern of farmer households, bases, enterprises, and markets.
Large-scale cultivation drives villagers to increase income and become prosperous
In order to help growers master konjac cultivation techniques as quickly as possible, Zhong Guolin spared no effort in going to various townships to train them and teach them hand by hand. At the same time, through platforms such as the Women's Federation, the Poverty Alleviation Office, and the Agricultural Quality Education Office, she conducted more than 200 professional training sessions for growers, reaching more than 20,000 person-times. The company also opened WeChat public accounts, technical service groups, SMS and other online channels to spread konjac cultivation techniques, adopting an O2O precision technical service model, with konjac farmers matching information online and organizing technical personnel to go to the countryside for guidance offline, greatly improving konjac yield per unit area and economic benefits.
In the wave of targeted poverty alleviation and industrial poverty eradication, Zhong Guolin assessed the situation and actively strove to include the konjac industry in the county's key poverty-alleviation industrial projects and the "13th Five-Year Plan" poverty-alleviation industrial plan. By the end of 2016, Zhong Guolin and like-minded people had jointly promoted the konjac industry to be carried out in 44 poverty-alleviation villages in the county as a whole and participated in by 65 poor villages, directly driving 2,361 poor households and 8,092 people to plant it. The konjac industry not only spread across 18 townships in Huitong County, but also radiated to drive cultivation in Guizhou, Guangxi, and Jiangxi provinces and nearly 30 counties (cities, districts) including Liuyang and Jingzhou in Hunan, with a planting area of more than 15,000 mu. At present, the company has signed buyback contracts with 65 poverty-alleviation villages, 53 farmers' professional cooperatives, family farms, and large growers, solving farmers' worries about konjac cultivation and exploring a new approach for the development of the poverty-alleviation industry.
Innovative products, a sunrise industry with broad prospects
As farmers' konjac planting area continues to expand, how to transform konjac raw materials into products with higher added value is a question Zhong Guolin has deeply pondered. Hunan Bojia Magic Agriculture Technology Co., Ltd., established with Zhong Guolin's capital injection, has a total investment of 99.8 million yuan and purchased 25 mu of land to develop a series of products led by konjac dietary fiber and konjac seasoned ready-to-eat foods. It has now built a 5735m2 standardized factory building and a 480m2 office building, installed 1 konjac drying line and 1 konjac refined powder grinding line, and built a new 1400m3 refrigerated controlled-atmosphere fresh-keeping warehouse. At the same time, it has also applied for three konjac cultivation technology patents, registered the "Junxie" trademark, and its konjac raw materials have passed the Ministry of Agriculture's green food certification.
"With the official start of production of deep processing of konjac at the end of November 2016 and the continuous increase in the added value of konjac, more and more farmer households will join this sunrise industry." Zhong Guolin said she will, as always, pour her full passion into this land, use the konjac industry to lead more poor farmer households onto the road of poverty alleviation and prosperity, and together realize the dream of moderate prosperity.