The story of Chen Xiangyang, a leader in green dairy farming

Walking into Huji Village, High-tech Zone, Hai'an County, Jiangsu Province, a modern dairy production base —— Hai'an Xiangyang Dairy Farm, unfolded before this writer. Rows of standardized cow sheds were laid out sensibly, healthy purebred dairy cows fed leisurely, energetic workers busily labored at their various posts, dozens of high-definition cameras recorded data and transmitted it in real time to a computer host, and production rules regulated the workers' words and actions at all times. All of this reflected the management wisdom of farm director Chen Xiangyang.

In early 2003, amid people's expectant gazes, Chen Xiangyang took up the post of dairy farm director. When he first took over, there were 47 cows, of which only 17 were producing milk, the total building area was less than 1000 sq m, and total liabilities were nearly 2 million yuan. How to lead the enterprise out of difficulty and quickly stabilize production to achieve economic benefits was the question he thought about most. Drawing on years of experience and a refusal to admit defeat, he launched a set of "combined punches." He obtained more than 200,000 yuan in bank loans to purchase quality reserve dairy cows from Shanghai, leased 50 mu of land, invited dairy farm construction experts from Nanjing to design high-standard cow sheds suited to dairy production characteristics, and culled inferior cows. At the same time, he sent technical staff out for further training, strengthened internal enterprise management, and improved rules and regulations. Relying on high-quality milk sources and a reputation for integrity, the enterprise gradually improved, and its production level rose steadily. It was recognized by the well-known domestic company Yili Group as the group's only milk source base in the Nantong area.

After becoming a milk source supply base for Yili Group, Chen Xiangyang came to understand the principle that "only by relying on science and technology can one seize opportunities and achieve leapfrog development." He actively worked to establish a dairy analysis and testing laboratory, invested more than 500,000 yuan, introduced automatic testing instruments from Germany, insisted on testing every batch of products and keeping samples, and did not let unqualified products leave the farm gate. In 2010, in a comprehensive review of more than 40 milk source bases of Yili Group across the province, Xiangyang Dairy Farm ranked second and took first place in the Suzhou area, and was selected as a milk source production base for special supply to the Shanghai World Expo. Its production scale also increased from more than 40 cows at the beginning to 320 cows, and it created a national-level standardized livestock and poultry demonstration farm.

Pursuing green development has always been one of Chen Xiangyang's goals. With the expansion of farming scale, the amount of manure and sewage treatment at the farm grew larger and larger. At the end of 2015, Xiangyang Dairy Farm built a new 13,000 cubic meter biogas fermentation tank, added dry-wet separation equipment, and renovated the manure and sewage pipeline network. Dry manure was sold to an organic fertilizer plant, manure water was used for biogas power generation, and the final biogas slurry was provided free of charge to farmers, so that manure was effectively utilized. Now the biogas power generation system can generate more than 1800 kWh per day, and by the end of May it had delivered 50,000 kWh of electricity to the power supply company. The growth and expansion of the dairy farm also solved the problem of comprehensive utilization of local straw resources. In the past year alone, Xiangyang Dairy Farm purchased more than 8000 tons of green straw, and straw from 3000 mu of surrounding farmland was effectively utilized, truly achieving virtuous circular development in agriculture. Chen Xiangyang was successively named "Nantong City Leader in Invigorating Agriculture through Science and Technology" and one of the "First Ten Outstanding Young Farmers of Nantong City."