He returned to his hometown to start a business growing shiitake mushrooms and founded a company to lead his fellow villagers to prosperity

At the Maoshan Branch of the Liaohe Farm in the Liaohe Agricultural Reclamation Management Area of Siping City, Jilin Province, when people mention Zheng Yanying, they all give a thumbs-up and call her the trailblazer of returning-home entrepreneurship in shiitake mushroom cultivation. Zheng Yanying, now 40 years old, has been growing shiitake mushrooms for six years. Over these six years, she went from the initial five shiitake mushroom greenhouses to forming a cooperative and now to founding a company, walking a solid path of leading her fellow villagers to prosperity together.

In 1998, while working in Anshan, Liaoning Province, Zheng Yanying saw that a friend was growing shiitake mushrooms there with particularly good returns, and from then on she began to pay attention to information in this field. Whenever she had time, she studied the cultivation techniques and looked into sales channels. Every year when she returned to her hometown, she carefully investigated the local shiitake mushroom market. Through her investigations, she found that shiitake mushroom cultivation in her hometown, the Liaohe Reclamation Area, was a gap in the market. At the time she thought that if she came back to develop shiitake mushroom cultivation, it would not only bring economic benefits but also fill the gap in shiitake mushroom cultivation technology in the Liaohe Reclamation Area. If done well, she could not only become wealthy herself but also help the people around her become wealthy. After nearly 10 years of careful preparation, in 2008 she and her husband returned home from Anshan City to develop shiitake mushroom cultivation, and from then on the farmers of the Liaohe Reclamation Area had one more source of income from shiitake mushroom cultivation.

As the business began, one problem after another appeared before her: land, roads, funding and more. After coordinating with multiple parties, she built 5 shiitake mushroom greenhouses. After the greenhouses were completed, on the one hand she trained workers in shiitake mushroom cultivation techniques, and on the other hand she led the workers in busy shiitake mushroom cultivation work every day before dawn. As the shiitake mushrooms grew day by day, Zheng Yanying felt that growing shiitake mushrooms was like nurturing her own child, full of surprises every day. In late autumn of 2008, she reaped her first pot of gold from shiitake mushroom cultivation. This gave Zheng Yanying and the workers hope and filled them with confidence in future development.

Zheng Yanying told the reporter: "I have now rented 2.4 hectares of land and built 5 heated shiitake mushroom greenhouses and 5 cold greenhouses. Each shiitake mushroom greenhouse can hold 25,000 shiitake mushroom sticks. Each stick can be harvested 6 times per year, and each stick produces 2 jin of shiitake mushrooms each time. One greenhouse can produce 50,000 jin of shiitake mushrooms per year. The current average wholesale price is about 5 yuan per jin, and the annual output value of one greenhouse is about 250,000 yuan. Around us, 13 farming households have already learned shiitake mushroom cultivation from me, and the largest one grows 89,000 shiitake mushroom sticks. Some farmers have also taken shares, most of them mainly contributing raw materials, and the farmers who hold shares increase their income by at least 1,500 yuan or more each year."