To grow "gūniang" (Physalis pubescens, hairy groundcherry), a college-graduate village official sold his wedding home

??? Northeast Network, June 20 (Reporters Chen Xianchun, Wang Mingfei) A college-graduate village official sold his wedding home to start a business, growing "gūniang" (hairy groundcherry). A very resourceful college graduate, daring to venture and fight, not discouraged by failure, summing up experience and starting over. With a clever mind and wisdom, he led the villagers onto the road to prosperity.

Liu Yichen is the assistant to the village Party secretary of Jianguo Village, Jianguo Town, Dongfeng District, Jiamusi City, and chairman of the Jiamusi Dongji Shangpin Fruit and Vegetable Farmers' Professional Cooperative. In 2008, after graduating from Jiamusi University with a degree in Chinese Language and Literature, he went to Songjiang Middle School in Dongfeng District to teach as a Chinese language teacher. In 2010, he passed the exam to become a college-graduate village official and was assigned to Jianguo Village as assistant to the village Party secretary.

Liu Yichen was responsible for Party building in the village. He spent two years organizing the village's Party affairs materials and produced the village's first set of Party building materials. Being meticulous in his work has always been his style.

In September 2012, Liu Yichen attended a meeting of college-graduate village officials and was deeply moved. He vividly described this meeting as "entrepreneurship of the mind" - serving rural areas solidly while also paving his own path to entrepreneurship.

Jianguo Village is a major rice-producing area. The village has little land and many poor households. How to lead the villagers to prosperity was what Liu Yichen thought about most.

Having ideas alone is not enough; they must be put into practice. At that time, the village had 26 greenhouses. Liu Yichen thought of using these greenhouses to grow muskmelons, bringing them to market early to sell at a good price. Liu Yichen discussed it with the villagers: the villagers would provide the greenhouses, he would provide the capital, and profits would be split equally. As it turned out, after a year he lost more than 100,000 yuan, losing all the money he had set aside for marriage.

He could not give up just because of one loss! With this in mind, Liu Yichen sold his wedding home and looked for a new project: growing yellow gūniang (Physalis pubescens, hairy groundcherry). Because of the previous failure with melons, no villagers were willing to cooperate this time. At that point, a villager's niece in the village was preparing for a middle school entrance exam. Liu Yichen discussed it with this villager: he would provide free tutoring, and the villager would teach him how to grow gūniang. Cooperation thus began.

Liu Yichen believes that the process of entrepreneurship is a process of trial and error. To learn from the previous lesson, Liu Yichen felt he lacked knowledge in agriculture, so he deliberately went to Harbin to study agricultural knowledge and research branding issues. After returning, Liu Yichen established the Jiamusi Dongji Shangpin Fruit and Vegetable Farmers' Professional Cooperative, doing brand marketing and developing leisure agriculture.

Liu Yichen's approach was a community-supported agriculture strategy: placing orders with farming households, connecting with residential communities, with enterprises and public institutions, and with hospitals and banks. He grew gūniang in 15 greenhouses, packaged them exquisitely, and sold them into high-end communities in Beijing. After all the hard work, this time he made a net profit of more than 200,000 yuan.

In May 2014, the Provincial Youth League Committee organized college-graduate village officials to study at the Harbin Science and Technology Park. This study session strengthened Liu Yichen's determination to build a leisure agriculture base. In November of that year, the Communist Youth League Central Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture had a youth agricultural science popularization project to be implemented in Heilongjiang. Liu Yichen seized the opportunity and applied in the name of the cooperative. In April 2015, the provincial-level youth base was established in Jianguo Village.

Building experiential agriculture, bringing students into rural areas, and a campus-supported agriculture model - the customer group shifted from community residents to students. In 2015, more than 5,000 person-times came to Jianguo Village to visit the agriculture, and the village earned more than 200,000 yuan from this alone.

During the interview, Nangang Village in Qianjin District, Jiamusi, organized villagers to come to Jianguo Village to learn, preparing to replicate the science popularization base and sign cooperation agreements with primary schools in its jurisdiction. Liu Yichen stated that in the future he will vigorously develop a shared franchise model for science popularization bases, charging a franchise fee of 30,000 yuan.

Liu Yichen said, "My entrepreneurial story is one of continuously growing through the process of trial and error." Today, Liu Yichen has been named a "post-80s entrepreneurship mentor" by the Heilongjiang Provincial Youth League Committee.