What Are the Secrets of Kongshan Yellow Cattle Farming? Zhao Yangchu's "Five Unifications and Five Guarantees" Helps Fellow Villagers
Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, is located in the northeastern part of the Sichuan Basin. Due to historical, geographical and other reasons, its overall development level is relatively low, and regional poverty remains a prominent problem. It is one of the main battlefields of the new round of poverty alleviation in China and Sichuan Province.
“In recent years, ecological agriculture has become a hot favorite in rural industrial development, and many people are devoted to the development of ecological circular agriculture. Zhao Yangchu, a native of Huoju Town, Tongjiang County, is no exception. After several years of effort, his road to wealth through returning home to start a business has become smoother and smoother.” According to Li Handeng, Secretary-General of the Bazhong Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhao Yangchu established Sichuan Lifu Ecological Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd. in March 2013, with registered capital of 30 million yuan. It is a private enterprise engaged in the integrated whole-industry-chain development of conservation breeding, slaughtering, cutting and cold-chain processing of “Tongjiang Kongshan Yellow Cattle.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, Zhao Yangchu earned his first pot of gold through purchasing and trafficking Chinese medicinal herbs elsewhere. Through more than ten years of development, he accumulated a certain amount of capital. Thinking of his hometown's superior geographical conditions and natural endowments, yet the fact that his fellow villagers lived in deep poverty due to isolation, he planned to develop ecological agriculture and animal husbandry to help local people escape poverty and become wealthy.
“Our company provides a few cows to villagers for free, provides free materials during the breeding process, free technical training, and buys the cattle back when they are ready for market, so there is no worry about sales, and each household can increase income by more than 10,000 yuan per year.” Zhao Yangchu did an economic calculation. In the process of targeted poverty alleviation, he innovatively explored a “Five Unifications and Five Guarantees” assistance mechanism to help poor households escape poverty and become wealthy: unified cattle breeds with guaranteed cattle-source replenishment, unified ingredients with guaranteed forage supply, unified training with guaranteed technical guidance, unified epidemic prevention with guaranteed disease treatment, and unified sales with guaranteed minimum-price purchase. Adopting a model combining centralized and decentralized breeding, for all poor farming households with the desire to raise cattle, he guides them in scientifically building breeding pens and provides comprehensive technical training. For villagers lacking funds to buy breeding cattle, settlement is made only when the cattle are ready for market. If the market price is lower than the guaranteed minimum price, the cattle are purchased at the guaranteed minimum price; otherwise, they are purchased at the market price. Farming households can also receive a reward of 500 yuan per head of cattle.
“Under General Manager Zhao's leadership, a cattle-raising boom has swept through our village, and every household raises three to five cattle.” Said villager Yan Shouping, through raising Kongshan Yellow Cattle, his family's escape from poverty is just around the corner.
Through recent years of effort, Zhao Yangchu's enterprise has built standardized Kongshan Yellow Cattle breeding pens with a total area of 4,500 sq m, raises more than 700 head of Kongshan Yellow Cattle, and has driven base farming households to increase income by an average of 18,000 yuan per year.