A skilled pig farmer drives poor households to get rich together

"The wind picked up last night; I hope the piglets didn't freeze." On the afternoon of January 31, at the Shengmin Black Pig Breeding Cooperative in Dali Village, Fuwen Town, Ding'an County, Feng Shengmin and his wife were busy stretching waterproof canvas over the pig pens. After the bustle, the piglets had a windbreak, grunting and squealing happily. Seeing how lively the piglets were, Feng Shengmin finally breathed a sigh of relief, his brows relaxed, and he smiled.

Feng Shengmin treasured these piglets like jewels, because they were not only his own family's piglets but also the poverty-alleviation piglets of the other 25 poor households in the village. To take good care of them, Feng Shengmin added a bed in the cooperative's warehouse and has lived there ever since. Every day he makes several rounds through the pig pens, tending them carefully, feeding them and cleaning the pens, never idle for a moment.

Though caring for the piglets was hard work, Feng Shengmin took joy in it. "Last year, by raising black pigs, I earned 50,000 to 60,000 yuan and took off the 'poverty hat.' My fellow villagers trust me and joined my cooperative with piglets as shares; how could I not work even harder?"

In the past, Feng Shengmin was also a poor household. Although he had a skilled hand at raising pigs, he had long lived in poverty due to a lack of development funds. In 2016, the village carried out targeted poverty alleviation work, supporting poor households in developing specialty breeding industries by distributing piglets and lambs. Feng Shengmin happily applied to the village for several piglets and began to focus on developing the business.

After the piglets were distributed, Feng Shengmin cared for them carefully every day, and the scale of breeding continued to expand. As there were more and more piglets, Feng Shengmin's pig pens gradually became insufficient; more than a dozen pigs were squeezed into a pen of just over ten sq m, without even enough room to move.

Just as Feng Shengmin was anxious about expanding the breeding site, many poor households in the village, lacking breeding skills, either raised the poverty-alleviation piglets to death or resold them for money, leaving the poverty alleviation officials quite helpless. At the same time, some villagers reported that free-range piglets in the village polluted the environment and gave off a foul stench.

"I have skills and drive, so why not organize everyone to raise pigs together?" After learning of this situation, Feng Shengmin had the idea of gathering the poor households together to raise pigs as a group. He then took the initiative to propose the idea of establishing a cooperative to the village committee and the then first secretary of the village Party branch.

Feng Shengmin's idea quickly received a response. Not only did the village's poor households approve wholeheartedly, but the provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the designated poverty alleviation unit for Dali Village, also proposed supporting 100,000 yuan to build 26 pig pens. To ensure the cooperative was established smoothly, Feng Shengmin did not hesitate to cut down some of his own underperforming rubber trees to free up land for building pig pens.

In August last year, the Shengmin Black Pig Breeding Cooperative was officially established, and villagers joined the cooperative one after another with their own poverty-alleviation piglets as shares. With the help of the village committee, Feng Shengmin also borrowed 20,000 yuan from the bank to buy piglets and expand the breeding scale.

After the cooperative got on track, Feng Shengmin and his wife shouldered all the affairs, big and small. They not only ate and lived at the cooperative, carefully tending the piglets, but also provided free technical training to villagers who came to learn, and processed the manure produced by pig raising into organic fertilizer to give to villagers. Under their management, the problem of the stench from pig raising no longer existed, and every black pig grew plump and thick and sold for a good price. In just half a year, Feng Shengmin earned his "first bucket of gold" by raising black pigs, and before the New Year he distributed more than 60,000 yuan in dividends to other poor households.

"Last year's pig raising was well received, so this year we still need to expand the scale." At the start of the New Year, Feng Shengmin had new prospects in mind. He planned to use the pig-raising income to expand production while also cutting down the remaining rubber trees at home to free up land to expand the cooperative. "Everyone is also thinking that while raising pigs, we should develop circular agriculture and introduce a specialty planting industry into the village."

In Ding'an, Feng Shengmin is not an isolated case. Since the battle against poverty began, Ding'an has followed the development approach of "one town, one industry; one village, one product; one household, one policy," actively coordinating poverty alleviation funds while providing support in technology, policy and many other aspects, enabling poor households to develop specialty industries suited to local conditions and steadily embark on the road to prosperity. According to statistics, in 2016 the county had a total of 2,560 poor households with 10,641 people lifted out of poverty, completing 114.8% of the task assigned by the province.