Migrant Worker Long Jisheng from Guiping Achieves Prosperity Through Cross-Regional Farming and Breeding
Recently, in a sugar mandarin orchard in Tangwan Tun, Zhushe Village, Mugui Town, Guiping City, captivating greenery surges everywhere. Clusters of sugar mandarins hang from the branches, swaying gently in the breeze, endearing and delightful, presenting a scene of an abundant harvest in sight. The owner of this orchard of over 300 mu is Long Jisheng, a native of Zhushe Village in the same town and chairman of Guiping City Nongyou Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. He also has a farming and breeding base in Shatang Town, Cangwu County, Wuzhou City, where he grows over 200 mu of sugar mandarins and other fruits. In recent years, Long Jisheng has successfully transitioned from being a migrant worker to cross-regional farming and breeding, living an increasingly sweet life and helping a whole village of fellow villagers prosper.
From Migrant Worker to Mandarin Grower
In the orchard, when Long Jisheng spoke of this year's harvest, his joy was evident beyond words. He smiled and said: "This year my sugar mandarins will have another bumper harvest. I estimate 3,000-4,000 kg of fruit per mu. At last year's purchase price of 4 yuan per kg, the sugar mandarin output value of the two orchards in Cangwu and Guiping alone could exceed 6.8 million yuan."
After graduating from junior high school, Long Jisheng went out to work. Over more than 20 years of working life, he did many kinds of jobs, and in particular mastered sugar mandarin cultivation techniques and accumulated production management experience. Years of working for others with meager income and having tasted all the ups and downs of life planted the idea of starting his own business. Drawing on his experience, he was optimistic about the sugar mandarin market and decided to transition into growing sugar mandarins.
For his first venture, he chose a location in Cangwu County, Wuzhou City, not far from Sihui City, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, the "Hometown of Chinese Citrus," where sugar mandarin production was already beginning to take shape. In 2011, through a friend's introduction and after many negotiations and discussions, he leased over 200 mu of land in Shatang Town, Cangwu County, raised funds from various sources, invested more than 2 million yuan in succession, and planted sugar mandarins, emperor mandarins and other fruits.
To ensure the success of his venture, Long Jisheng ate and slept on the hilltop, braving sun and rain, and together with his employees devoted himself wholeheartedly to the orchard. To improve his cultivation techniques, he went to Zhaoqing Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other places for further study, taking Director Qiu of Zhaoqing Academy of Agricultural Sciences and experts and technicians from the Guiping City Agriculture Bureau as his teachers, hired several professional technicians, and often organized technicians to visit Sihui City and other places for on-site inspections and learning. He finally successfully developed a set of sugar mandarin cultivation and production techniques suited to the local area, increasing yields and raising operating income year by year, and getting a taste of success.
Bringing Mandarins Home to Lead Villagers
Long Jisheng's hometown, Mugui Town, is located at the confluence of the Qianjiang, Yujiang and Xunjiang rivers, near the Tropic of Cancer, with fertile land, a mild climate and abundant rainfall. It has a subtropical monsoon climate with a long frost-free period in winter, suitable for sugar mandarin growth. After earning his first pot of gold from his venture, Long Jisheng decided to bring sugar mandarins and other crops back to his hometown to grow, leading villagers to shake off poverty and achieve prosperity together. In early 2013, he leased over 400 mu of sloping land near Zhushe Village, Mugui Town, invested more than 3 million yuan in total, and planted sugar mandarins, guavas and other fruits in stages and batches. He also developed three-dimensional farming and breeding, intercropping pumpkins, Chinese yam, kudzu potato and other short-term cash crops in the orchard, raising pigs, chickens and fish, fully tapping the land's potential and increasing production and operating income.
After succeeding in growing sugar mandarins and other crops, Long Jisheng did not forget his fellow villagers. In 2015, with loan support from the local rural credit cooperative, he founded Guiping City Nongyou Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., providing villagers with information, technology and high-quality seedlings. Surrounding villagers set off a wave of fruit growing, shifting away from the past practice of digging mines and smelting manganese to sell resources for income and taking the path of ecological development. Under his leadership and help, Mugui Town successively established 18 agricultural professional cooperatives and bases, with nearly 100 impoverished households participating in characteristic industries such as sugar mandarins, emperor mandarins, guavas, pig farming, fish farming, chicken farming and snail farming. He also leveraged his advantages of keen market information, many merchant connections and a broad sales network to expand fruit sales channels, actively promoting local agricultural products and increasing the income of fruit growers and specialized households.
A Win-Win Across Two Places Makes the Fruit Sweeter
As the two bases in Cangwu and Guiping gradually took shape, Long Jisheng and his management staff often traveled between the two places, integrating production resources and achieving complementary advantages: introducing seedlings and technology from Cangwu, exporting labor from Guiping, and strengthening technical exchanges to build up development strength and promote the growth of both bases.
According to Long Jisheng, his sugar mandarins are mainly fertilized with farmyard organic fertilizer, the fruit trees have fewer pests and diseases, and pesticide spraying is rare, producing ecologically friendly, high-quality sugar mandarins. The fruit is large, well-colored, juicy, thin-skinned with thick flesh, refreshingly sweet and tasty, and it comes to market before the Spring Festival, deeply favored by customers. Every year a northern merchant, Murong Ming, books in advance and comes directly to the orchard to purchase.
At present, Long Jisheng's two bases grow over 500 mu of sugar mandarins, over 80 mu of guavas, and over 50 mu of Chinese yam and kudzu potato, and raise pigs, chickens, fish and more on a large scale. Last year, sugar mandarins achieved an output value of over 5.6 million yuan, and the bases also sold over 300 head of live pigs, over 5,000 chickens, and fish. They employ over 50 long-term workers and over 300 seasonal workers.
Advancing Further from an Already High Level. The joy of success has inspired even greater entrepreneurial passion in Long Jisheng. At present, he is negotiating to lease 250 mu of land to create a new orchard, and plans to introduce early-maturing, high-quality sugar mandarin varieties from Nanjing next year, avoiding the peak ripening period of ordinary sugar mandarins, seizing market opportunities ahead of others, improving operating efficiency, and leading more villagers to prosperity.