Fig cultivation ignites two college students' dream of returning home to get rich

In Chiwan Village, Youchegang Town, Xiuzhou District, there is a pair of friends born in the 1980s who share the same ideals and agreed to become college-educated "farmers" of the new era, choosing the fig industry. This choice led them to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the land without regret, and they plan to keep going down this path.

Recently, in the agricultural base east of the Chiwan Village committee office, fig trees were lush and green, with ripe figs hanging all over the branches and giving off waves of fresh fragrance. The owners of this orchard -- Tang Kaifeng and Xia Jun -- were inspecting the growth conditions of the trees. The reporter learned that this base was just built this year, and the figs in the field were also planted for the first time this year. Although it has not been long, the hardship and difficulty of doing agriculture have already left some marks on them, and both young men have been tanned dark.

Tang Kaifeng told the reporter that his connection with figs came from a gathering of friends. "A few friends sat together talking about agriculture and mentioned that figs were basically a blank in Jiaxing, so the idea of growing figs came up." Seeing the business opportunity, Tang Kaifeng found his good friend Xia Jun, and the two hit it off immediately. With the drive of young people, the two decided to act right away and came to Chiwan Village, Youchegang Town. With the help of village committee director Xu Pinghua, they rented a piece of land and began trying to grow figs. "Figs are invested in the same year and harvested in the same year. For farmers, they are also relatively suitable to grow, and the risk is not very great," Tang Kaifeng said.

In fact, starting a business is not as simple as it sounds on paper, and farming is not as straightforward as moving textbook knowledge into the field. Although growing figs has low risk and quick returns, at the beginning of the venture, difficulties came one after another. "At first, the land had not been leveled, and the fig seedlings had already been delivered for some time. If they were not planted in time, they would not easily survive, so we worked around the clock 24 hours a day without stopping to get the seedlings planted in time," Tang Kaifeng said.

Afterward, consecutive rainy weather brought a severe test to the newly planted fig seedlings. The harsh weather once made both of them think this venture would end in failure. As a partner, the meticulous Xia Jun hardly had a good night's sleep during those days. "Every night when I heard the rain outside was heavy, I would make a special trip to the orchard to take a look," Xia Jun said. "At first my parents were strongly opposed. They felt that they had worked so hard to raise a college student, and in the end he came back to 'farm,' which they found hard to accept for a while."

However, they did not give up. Instead, it stirred up an even stronger fighting spirit. Although the rainy weather continued, under the two men's careful field management, it did not bring too great an impact to their base. In early August this year, the figs at the base ripened. "The yield in the first year was still okay, with the price between 8 and 10 yuan per jin, and the yield about 1,000 jin per mu," Tang Kaifeng said.

Then, the two friends, who had never had any sales experience, pulled a cartload of goods to the Wangjiangjing Town farmers' market. After an awkward ten minutes or so, they finally shouted out their first call. "We were thin-skinned and did not dare to shout, but we had to sell. If we did not sell, the goods would sit unsold," Tang Kaifeng said. On the first day, they brought more than 50 jin and sold it all, earning about a thousand yuan, which gave the two tremendous motivation. As for the future of fig cultivation, Xia Jun was full of confidence: "Since we have planted them, we must grow them well. We will continue to expand the scale and grow more and tastier figs."