A post-85s generation youth gives up a stable job to return home and become a farmer
"If you're not afraid of thorns, you can also pick raspberries, like small coral beads gathered into little balls, both sour and sweet, far better in color and taste than mulberries." I believe this passage must feel very familiar to you; it comes from Mr. Lu Xun's prose "From the Hundred-Plant Garden to the Three-Flavor Study." The "raspberries" mentioned in the text, known as raspberry after artificial cultivation, have achieved a bumper harvest after several years of planting and development in Zhangqiu, and are attracting consumers from within and outside the province to come and pick the fruit and taste its indescribable flavor. The founder of the raspberry base is Dou Guanglei, a post-85s young man who went through untold hardships to escape the "farm gate," had already obtained a stable job, yet two years ago resolutely gave up his stable job, returned to his hometown, and willingly chose to be a farmer, stepping into the ranks of dream-chasers "striking gold in the soil."
From white-collar worker to farmer
Right now, Dou Guanglei is ushering in the busiest moment of the year. His raspberry orchard has reached maturity; in nearly 200 mu of raspberry groves, the fruit hangs heavy. Besides receiving guests who come to pick, Dou Guanglei also has to chat and laugh freely with all kinds of dealers who come to discuss business. Just a year ago, Dou Guanglei could not have imagined that his raspberry planting base could stir up such a world.
In 2008, after graduation, Dou Guanglei smoothly entered Laiwu Steel Group, working his way up from a workshop worker to a special correspondent for the Laiwu Steel TV station, settling down and establishing a career in the city, everything just as his parents had hoped. However, in June 2012, Dou Guanglei did something that surprised and puzzled everyone: he gave up what ordinary people saw as a superior job in the city, resolutely returned to his old home in Zhangqiu, became a farmer, and began to start his own business. "During that period, I was under great pressure. Some people even spread rumors that I had 'done something wrong' and been sent back by my work unit. Especially my mother - she endured hardships to support me through school, hoping I could rise above others. As for me returning home to farm, she felt she couldn't hold her head up, and she cut off our mother-son relationship for half a year," recalling the hardships of starting his business, Dou Guanglei was filled with mixed emotions. "My hometown is too poor. The elders labored hard in the fields for a year and could not earn much money." Dou Guanglei told the reporter that as a rural child, what flows in his veins is a farmer's blood, and he has an inseparable emotional bond with agriculture and rural areas. "All these years, although I was studying, I always had a dream in my heart - to carve out a world on the land and lead the villagers to prosperity. Model villages like Huaxi Village and Xiwang Village also constantly inspired me."
In fact, since graduation, Dou Guanglei had been searching for an agricultural entrepreneurship project. "One day in 2011, I went on a business trip with a teacher and came into contact with raspberries for the first time. I was immediately attracted by the appearance and taste of raspberries." Dou Guanglei told the reporter that at first glance it looks like a large mulberry, and on closer look like a red strawberry. This very special fruit is the raspberry, which is actually the raspberry mentioned in Lu Xun's prose "From the Hundred-Plant Garden to the Three-Flavor Study." The raspberry, once a rustic fruit growing deep in the mountains, is a noble fruit abroad. That day, the seed of developing the raspberry industry was planted in his heart.
In the days that followed, to realize his entrepreneurial dream, Dou Guanglei began using his spare time to make preliminary preparations for starting his business. He consulted relevant materials. In order to have more time to investigate projects, he simply resigned, went to a professional training institution to study for three months, then went to Hebei, Northeast China, Beijing and other provinces' planting bases to investigate and study for half a year, mastering advanced planting techniques.
Borrowing money to buy saplings
"Actually, I didn't do this project blindly; I really did careful research and investigation," Dou Guanglei said. Raspberries have high nutritional and health value and are the third-generation golden fruit sweeping the world today. Demand is very high in Europe, America and developed countries, especially Canada, the United States, Germany, South Korea and Japan, where interest in raspberries is extremely high. "Currently, five to six hundred thousand tons are circulating internationally. To reach supply-demand balance, 2 million tons are needed. The gap is huge, which shows the market space is very large."
As Dou Guanglei understood raspberries more and more, his desire to start a business grew stronger and stronger. The move of a staff member formerly employed by the Ministry of Agriculture who resigned and returned home to plant raspberries became the catalyst for him to give up everything and go all in. In Dou Guanglei's view, planting raspberries is a very promising project; the earlier one gets involved, the better one can seize the opportunity. "I am a farmer. I have lived in the countryside since childhood. I know how to farm and how to get land," Dou Guanglei said. Choosing an agricultural project to start a business, he had unique advantages. When everything was ready, in the autumn of 2012, Dou Guanglei took the first step of starting his business: borrowing money. "At that time I only had 30,000 yuan in hand, far from enough, so I could only toughen up and borrow money," Dou Guanglei told the reporter. He tirelessly introduced the project's advantages to relatives and friends, first raising 300,000 yuan in startup capital, contracted land in Dangjia Village, Zhangqiu, and introduced multiple raspberry varieties from the Chinese Academy of Forestry. Dou Guanglei believed that with land and saplings, borrowing money to expand the planting area would be relatively easier. From his experience of borrowing money, he formed his own "cook the raw rice into cooked rice" style of borrowing.
From planting the first raspberry at the beginning, through more than two years of effort, Dou Guanglei's raspberry base now has more than 300 mu, and the orchard is already heavy with fruit. "More than 2 million yuan has already been invested, and this year is the first year of fruiting," Dou Guanglei told the reporter. Blackberries yield about 1,500 jin per mu, red raspberries yield seven to eight hundred jin per mu, and on his nearly 200 mu of land, this year seventy to eighty tons of raspberries were produced.
The reporter learned that because Dou Guanglei's raspberry varieties are diverse and the fruit tastes pure, they were favored by consumers as soon as they hit the market. At present, the main uses are picking and supplying raw materials to wineries and beverage factories for deep processing. In addition, the saplings he cultivated have also become hot commodities for many planting bases within and outside the province.
Growing through trial and error
In Dou Guanglei's raspberry orchard, 21 varieties of raspberries are planted, with black, red, yellow, purple and blue colors all brilliantly displayed, making it one of the top three raspberry bases in Shandong with the most complete varieties. Every day, fifty or sixty people work in the fields, watering the land, pruning and fertilizing, breeding saplings, picking fruit...