Fangun Village launches a turnaround battle for rural revitalization
“Stonefrogfarming has particularly high requirements for water quality; the water temperature must be kept at around 16 to 28 degrees Celsius. If the water temperature is too high, it easily breeds bacteria and causes stonefrogdeaths; if the water temperature is too low, the stone frogs easily enter a hibernation state, which is unfavorable for growth and reproduction.” Facing visitors touring the cooperative's breeding farm, Luo Longyun explained the ins and outs of stone frog farming.
Luo Longyun is the “post-90s” chairman of the Yongxing Ecological Planting and Breeding Cooperative in Fangun Village, Guanme Town, Jianhe County, Guizhou Province. Luo Longyun, 24 this year, returned home from military service in early 2014, then established a cooperative in the village and took the lead in special breeding of stone frogs, bamboo rats and other species.
Ten years ago, Fangun Village was a village hidden deep in the folds of the mountains, with high mountains and steep slopes and inaccessible transportation. The rice, corn and tung oil seeds produced in the village all had to be carried on people's backs and shoulders before they could be sent to the market in Liangsang Township, Sansui County next door for sale. In 2004, village Party branch secretary Luo Shijun and other members of the “two committees” team helped the village build through a “dead-end road” by bringing in sponsorship from a timber boss.
Once the road was open, hope for prosperity sprouted along with it. In April 2014, under the leadership of village officials, Luo Longyun and others, the Yongxing Ecological Planting and Breeding Cooperative in Fangun Village came into being. Today, the cooperative has 16 member households with shares, including 8 poor households. The cooperative mainly focuses on developing special planting and breeding of valerian, gambir vine, blackberry lily, millet, pigs, bamboo rats, stone frogs, free-range chickens and more. Apart from the pig farm still under construction, the cooperative currently plants 48 mu of valerian and 200 mu of millet, and raises more than 1,500 free-range chickens, 80 bamboo rats and 500 pairs of stone frogs.
“Bamboo rat farming requires an air-permeable and well-ventilated environment, and they must not be fed bamboo that has been touched by dew. The mother rats must not be startled, otherwise the mother rats will eat the newborn pups.” These are all bamboo rat farming lessons summed up by cooperative chairman Luo Longyun.
After the cooperative plans to further develop and grow, it will hand its products to an e-commerce platform to help sell them externally, using a village-cooperative joint development model (village “two committees” + cooperative) to drive the transformation of the industrial development model, and strive to realize the wish of the people of Fangun Village to escape poverty and turn their fortunes around as soon as possible. To this end, village officials are now thinking about how to promote Fangun Village's millet wine brand and striving to register a trademark for local specialty products as soon as possible.
Yang Wenbin Peng Wengui