Jia Dexuan returns home to start a cattle farming business, and does not forget his fellow villagers on the road to prosperity

Jia Dexuan, 46 this year, is a native of Banzhulin Village, Panlong Town, Nanbu County. Over nearly 30 years, through hard work he grew from a laborer on a construction site into the head of a company with more than 1,000 workers. In 2014, Jia Dexuan, who had grown wealthy but had not forgotten his fellow villagers, returned to his hometown and founded an ecological cattle farm. Through an innovative farming model, he embarked on a path of development that leads his fellow villagers to prosperity together.

Business success, returning home to raise cattle

In 1986, at just 16 years old, Jia Dexuan gave up his studies and went to Xi'an to make a living. Starting as a laborer on a construction site, he built up his business step by step, successively founding a labor services company and a construction company, with more than 1,000 employees and assets of 80 million yuan.

In early 2014, Jia Dexuan began toying with the idea of returning home to start a business. In May of that year, after extensive research, Jia Dexuan invested 10 million yuan to transfer more than 1,000 mu of abandoned land in 3 villages - Banzhulin, Miaogaosi and Huoshenya in Panlong Town - and built an ecological farm with a total area of 6,000 sq m in Banzhulin Village, and established the Nanbu County Desheng Farmers' Professional Cooperative to raise Simmental beef cattle.

Jia Dexuan adopted an ecological farming model of “combining planting and breeding”. He built 2 large septic tanks and separated cattle manure into solid and liquid. All solid manure, after fermentation treatment, is used to grow corn, ryegrass, yellow bamboo grass and other feed for the beef cattle on the farm, while all urine, after treatment through the septic tanks, is used via a sprinkler irrigation system to water fruit trees and the corn, ryegrass and yellow bamboo grass. This circular planting-and-breeding model not only saves farming costs but also ensures the quality of the beef and is ecologically sound.

After more than two years of development, the farm now markets 600 beef cattle a year, with annual output value of more than 7.2 million yuan. In December 2015, the farm was rated a “Standardized Beef Cattle Demonstration Farm” by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. In May this year, the cooperative was rated a “Municipal-Level Demonstration Cooperative” by the municipal agriculture and animal husbandry department.

Leading fellow villagers in common development

On July 19, when this writer came to the feed processing workshop of the farm, several villagers were putting bundles of stalks into a corn stalk rubbing machine.

“After crushing, these stalks become excellent green feed.” Jia Dexuan said that raising beef cattle requires a very large amount of green feed. In addition to growing green feed himself, he also buys more than 1,000 tons of stalks from nearby villagers at 300 yuan per ton, which both increases local farmers' incomes and prevents farmers from burning stalks on the spot and polluting the air.

“The breeding industry is a labor-intensive industry.” According to Jia Dexuan, every day he hires more than 40 villagers to help him handle the daily management affairs of the farm, and the farm's annual labor expenditure reaches 1.5 million yuan.

Zhao Bin from Tongma'an Village in the same town is one of them. Zhao Bin was hired by Jia Dexuan as a manager, responsible for the daily management of the farm, with a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan.

In recent years, in order to improve the production and living conditions of Banzhulin Village, Jia Dexuan donated more than 300,000 yuan in succession to help the village build 1 km of cement road and lay 600 m of bluestone slab footpaths. After returning home to start his business, he invested another more than 1.6 million yuan to build 4 km of industrial road and a hill pond with an area of about 10 mu, which not only made things convenient for himself but also improved the production and living conditions of the local people.

Innovating mechanisms to help poverty alleviation

Leading the villagers to prosperity together was Jia Dexuan's original intention in returning home to start a business. How could he drive more fellow villagers, especially impoverished people, to escape poverty and become prosperous together? Last December, after widely soliciting opinions, Jia Dexuan decided to lead more villagers out of poverty and to prosperity through a “trusteeship breeding” model of “cooperative + farmers + poor households.”

“Trusteeship breeding means the farm gives cows that have entered their breeding period free of charge to villagers who are willing to raise them. After the cow gives birth, the farm buys the calf from the villager at market price. If the villager is unwilling to continue raising the cow, it can be returned to the farm.” Jia Dexuan said that under trusteeship breeding, the cooperative provides unified throughout-the-whole-process services including technical guidance, business training and epidemic prevention management, while farmers are only responsible for daily grazing and care.

“The trusteeship breeding model has found us a way to make money without spending any capital of our own.” Villager Xiang Chunmao told this writer that in November last year, the cow his family held in trusteeship successfully gave birth to a calf, and just 3 months later this calf brought his family an income of 4,000 yuan. Xiang Chunmao plans to take another cow into trusteeship at the farm, “so that raising cattle can bring in 8,000 yuan a year.”

“Thank you to the cooperative for giving us a way to increase our income.” Yang Zongming, 67 this year, is a registered poor household in Banzhulin Village. Early this year, he also took 2 cows into trusteeship at the cooperative. “At the end of the year, after the cows give birth, together with income from farming and wages, we will be able to escape poverty on schedule.”

It is understood that at present, a total of 30 households in the 2 villages of Banzhulin and Miaogaosi have taken 42 cows from the cooperative into trusteeship, among them 10 poor households with 16 cows.