Post-80s college-graduate village official takes root in rural areas for 5 years, leading villagers to prosperity
He is a college graduate, and also a college-graduate village official. After graduating in 2008, he joined the second batch of college-graduate village officials in Jiangsu Province and came to Lunancun Village in Yizheng City, Yangzhou, to serve as assistant village party secretary. Over the past 5 years, he has led villagers in setting up a mushroom production factory, developing vegetable greenhouse cultivation, and advancing high-efficiency agriculture, guiding farmers to a moderately prosperous life.
His name is Zheng Fuyuan. Speaking of his insights and experience in college-graduate entrepreneurship, he said: "Entrepreneurship does not need grand words; it only needs a down-to-earth approach and the courage and wisdom to walk a path that suits you."
"I come from the countryside, and I wanted to return to the countryside"
In 2008, Zheng Fuyuan graduated with excellent grades from Nanjing Audit University. He could have stayed in Nanjing and found a decent job, so why did he resolutely choose to join the ranks of Jiangsu college-graduate village officials? And what kind of motivation made him choose to start a business in the countryside?
"I come from the countryside, and I wanted to return to the countryside." Zheng Fuyuan introduced himself, saying that in 1985, he was born into a poor farming family in Yizheng, Yangzhou. After graduating from university, he chose to apply to become a college-graduate village official.
When he first arrived in Lunancun Village, Dayi Town, Yizheng City, Zheng Fuyuan found that although the village's living conditions were decent, the villagers were either working outside as bricklayers or as workers in plush toy factories, all doing manual labor. Since he had taken root in the countryside, he had to make full use of the countryside's advantages. From this, Zheng Fuyuan conceived the idea of basing himself in the countryside and developing high-efficiency agriculture. He wanted to lead the villagers along a path to prosperity that combined production, technology, and the market.
"Entrepreneurship requires passion, but even more so rationality." After traveling all over Yizheng City, Zheng Fuyuan found that mushroom cultivation was very rare there, and Yizheng's mushroom market mostly relied on supplies from other places; moreover, mushroom production required very little investment, and it could be started with just a few hundred thousand yuan.
At the end of 2008, Zheng Fuyuan rented 20 mu of land in Lunancun Village, led more than 40 villagers, and founded Yangzhou Jiakang Mushroom Industry Development Co., Ltd., beginning factory-style production of enoki mushrooms.
Now, the company has been operating for five years. It not only has a culture room, growth room, packaging room, and all other facilities complete, achieving mechanized, assembly-line production, but has also established a dedicated mushroom distribution center with fixed sales channels. At present, the company produces 8 tons of enoki mushrooms per day, all of which are sold out every day, with an annual output value of 3 million yuan.
"If you want to succeed in entrepreneurship, first of all you must not be afraid"
Arriving at Lunancun Village, greenhouses stretch in patches across the fields, and inside them peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers "compete in beauty," fresh and tender. The villagers were busy in the fields, and when they saw Zheng Fuyuan, they called out greetings to him from far away.
"In the village, I was the first to grow vegetables in greenhouses." Talking about greenhouse vegetable cultivation, Zheng Fuyuan spoke fluently: "At the end of 2009, I transferred another 20 mu of land from the village and built 18 greenhouses, each growing different seasonal vegetables. The scale is not large, but generally the vegetables can reach the market early and sell for a good price." Zheng Fuyuan's greenhouse vegetables have several characteristics: first, they are not resold or outsourced, ensuring a fair price; second, they do not use the label of off-season production and respect people's habit of healthy eating; third, vegetables of different seasons are planted in rotation to ensure timely supply.
In order to help villagers master more vegetable-growing techniques, Zheng Fuyuan often invited experts from the Yizheng Municipal Agriculture Committee to provide guidance, bought books from bookstores and downloaded videos online for villagers to study, and often held experience-sharing sessions in the greenhouses. Under his leadership, growers such as Old Wang watched agricultural economics programs every day and also learned to grow vegetables using plastic film.
"Most people are relatively conservative in their thinking. I think that if you want to succeed in entrepreneurship, first of all you must not be afraid," Zheng Fuyuan said. "Many things seem very difficult when you think about them, but once you actually start doing them, they are not difficult."
"My life's value has been realized"
After five years of entrepreneurship, reflecting on all kinds of sweetness and bitterness, Zheng Fuyuan said that there are many principles of entrepreneurship, but you never know how hard things are until you have been through them yourself. Only through personal experience can one truly grow.
For Zheng Fuyuan, who grew up amid hardship, seizing every challenge and turning it into his own capital is his path. Therefore, in the process of entrepreneurship, no matter how difficult it was, he could grit his teeth and keep going. When building vegetable greenhouses, in order to save expenses, he bent steel pipes himself, and after a day of it, his hands were covered with blood blisters from the abrasion.
Of course, besides all kinds of bitterness, the road of entrepreneurship also had no lack of joy. Zheng Fuyuan had a small account book recording the daily income from greenhouse vegetables. "At first, I recorded a hundred or so yuan a day, and I was quite happy. No matter what, at least there was income. Later, I began recording figures in the thousands, so I added up a month's income and calculated it, and I could not help exclaiming inwardly: growing vegetables can bring in this much income!" Zheng Fuyuan chuckled happily. However, his happiness did not stop there. Zheng Fuyuan said that now the common people have seen the prospects of high-efficiency agriculture, and many have already begun exploring and starting cultivation. "I am someone who grew up eating food from many households. To be able to use my own strength to bring everyone some benefits, my life's value has been realized."
Over the past 5 years, Zheng Fuyuan has grown from a college graduate into a capable entrepreneur who, steadily and one step at a time, has taken root in the countryside and led villagers to prosperity. As for the future, he said that he is currently considering how to process mushroom residue into fuel, maximize the benefits of vegetable greenhouse cultivation, and establish a cooperative to lead more villagers onto the path of entrepreneurship.