Growing rice on saline-alkali land: Wang Wenxing of Yanshan County, Cangzhou, forges a new path to prosperity

When people talk about the land in Yanshan, a saying has long been passed down: "In drought you harvest locusts, in flood you harvest toads, and with neither flood nor drought you harvest alkali crust." Yet on this very stretch of barren saline-alkali land, someone actually succeeded in trial-planting rice and carried out "rice-wheat rotation," reaping a rich harvest. This not only blazed a new path for local farmers in adjusting the agricultural industrial structure, but also added a beautiful sight to Yanshan County's "three points, three lines" urban-rural integration framework. That person is Wang Wenxing, head of the Yanshan Nongmeng Planting Professional Cooperative.

A big boss in the steel business, crossing into farming, growing rice in saline-alkali land - can he really forge a path to prosperity? Carrying these questions, this writer came to this land famous as the "hometown of saline-alkali soil," Yanshan.

When people talk about the land in Yanshan, a saying has long been passed down: "In drought you harvest locusts, in flood you harvest toads, and with neither flood nor drought you harvest alkali crust." Yet on this very stretch of barren saline-alkali land, someone actually succeeded in trial-planting rice and carried out "rice-wheat rotation," reaping a rich harvest. This not only blazed a new path for local farmers in adjusting the agricultural industrial structure, but also added a beautiful sight to Yanshan County's "three points, three lines" urban-rural integration framework.

That person is Wang Wenxing, head of the Yanshan Nongmeng Planting Professional Cooperative.

Wang Wenxing, 36 this year, is from Lianhuawei Village, Hanji Town. In 2013 he transferred more than 1,200 mu of land in Chenjia Village and began trial-planting rice. Previously Wang Wenxing had always run a steel company, but as the national steel market has shown signs of decline in recent years, Wang Wenxing began to consider a new direction for his future business. Hearing that there were places growing rice in Huanghua, Wang Wenxing personally went there to see for himself. Once he saw it, he found that rice grown in the north had both good yield and good quality, with relatively large profit margins, so he set his sights on developing the rice-growing industry.

The farmland where Wang Wenxing grows rice lies right within the "Hebei Province Modern Agriculture Comprehensive Development (Yanshan) Demonstration Zone," which has already taken shape as a new modern agricultural pattern of "fields in squares, forests in networks, ditches connected, roads linked, irrigation in drought, drainage in flood." Growing rice requires water, and the water conservancy facilities built in the Hebei Province Modern Agriculture Comprehensive Development (Yanshan) Demonstration Zone laid a solid foundation for Wang Wenxing's development of rice growing. Rice growing was something new in Yanshan and the surrounding areas, and although Wang Wenxing recruited workers, the workers he brought in still held a skeptical attitude.

Seedlings were raised on May 23, 2014, and transplanting took place on June 18, finishing 10 days later. At once the contiguous stretches of paddy field were like a green blanket spread over the earth, full of vitality. But Wang Wenxing still faced a technical hurdle: how to solve the problem of the local saline-alkali soil. Wang Wenxing explained that the cooperative relies on Shenyang Agricultural University for technical support and hired several highly experienced technical experts as technical guides. During the rice-growing process, through periodic water replenishment and drainage, part of the salt in the soil is leached out, and then through the rice-wheat rotation model and corresponding water conservancy facilities, the movement patterns of water and salt are influenced, ultimately achieving the goal of reducing the degree of soil salinization. After several rounds of effort, the technical difficulties were finally overcome, and a few months later the rice harvest was abundant - Wang Wenxing and the workers were thrilled.

In March 2015, full of confidence, Wang Wenxing took his "Nongmengxiang" brand rice to major shopping malls in Yanshan and the surrounding areas for promotion. Because it was rice produced locally in Yanshan, both shopping malls and supermarkets showed a certain interest, but whether the rice could sell well would ultimately depend on quality.

So Wang Wenxing rolled out all kinds of promotional activities. Thanks to excellent product quality and a good market reputation, Nongmengxiang rice has now entered many supermarkets including Cangzhou Huabei Commercial Building, Yiming Supermarket, Hongkelong, and Tesco, with sales of premium rice alone reaching 500 tons per year. Now Wang Wenxing has also recognized the advantages of online e-commerce and established cooperative relationships with some e-commerce platforms.

At present, Hebei Nongmengxiang Grain Processing Co., Ltd., registered by Wang Wenxing, has successfully listed on the Shanghai Equity Exchange. This year, the annual sales revenue of Wang Wenxing's "Nongmengxiang" rice is expected to reach more than 2.6 million yuan.

Now Wang Wenxing's rice fields have become an agricultural industry highlight in Yanshan County's "'three points, three lines' urban-rural integration strategy." Wang Wenxing is also full of confidence about developing rice cultivation. Next, he will continue to expand the planting scale, attract farmers to join the ranks of rice growing, and build a county-level leading enterprise that uses rice and wheat as raw materials and integrates production, processing, and sales, in order to achieve sustainable agricultural development and large-scale operation.