Sichuan young man Liu Xue and his lemon dream
Liu Xue, a young man with a dream. Image source: Xijiang Net
The lemons have yielded a bumper harvest. Image source: Xijiang Net
The man before us, just over 30, has dark skin and wears a pair of black-framed glasses, looking every bit like an artist, and it is hard to associate him with "farmer." His name is Liu Xue, from Sichuan, who came out to start a business before finishing junior high school. Now he grows lemons in Huaiji and has "grown" his own path to prosperity. A reporter interviewed him recently.
Came out to start a business before finishing junior high school
Liu Xue was born into an ordinary rural family in Guang'an, Sichuan Province. The family's poverty in his childhood made him more sensible than his peers. Before finishing junior high school, he dropped out and returned home to help with farm work and care for his seriously ill father. After his father passed away, in order to repay the family's debts and support his younger sister's schooling, he resolutely set out on the arduous road south to work as a migrant worker. At the time, he was not yet 15.
"I hadn't even finished junior high school, what could I do?" Liu Xue recalled. With a few thousand yuan, he came to a photography school in Shenzhen to study professional photography and began a brief career in photography, during which he also met his current business partner, Liu Zhong.
The two had similar family experiences, and both came out to strive for a living at 15. One day, Liu Xue said to Liu Zhong: "A lot of healthy, high-quality food comes from the countryside, so why not go back to the village and start an agricultural project..." The two hit it off immediately.
Just when their peers were rushing to the cities, the two returned to the countryside. In Liu Xue's view, the countryside always had a special force attracting him, and many people born in the 1980s and 1990s are not very willing to farm the land, so there is more potential to tap in the village. But Liu Xue's mother felt that having been a farmer all her life, her son's being able to leave the mountains was already fortunate, and she did not understand his choice. He told his mother that only by going out to pioneer what others look down on and are unwilling to do could he realize the dream in his heart and change his own fate. Liu's mother tacitly consented.
He realized his "lemon dream"
After gaining his family's understanding, Liu Xue began to work on his own career. After investigating everywhere, he found that Huaiji County has uniquely favorable natural advantages, and that if lemons were grown there, there would certainly be a future: "Many people in Guangdong don't know much about lemons, and this blank market is exactly where the lemon market's potential lies." In 2011, with a simple bundle of belongings, he came to Huaiji County and contracted a piece of wasteland to grow lemons.
"Coming from Shenzhen to Huaiji, around my farm there is wasteland, with no village nearby, and the nights feel even more desolate. Living here alone, I feel very lonely." But Liu Xue said that a big tree never moves from its spot in its whole life and still endures the baptism of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, yet still has lush branches and leaves - what strong perseverance that is. Doing agricultural work is the same, and he believes he will carve out a world of his own.
Liu Xue said: "Once the lemons are planted, that is the beginning of the dream." He devoted himself to studying growing techniques, actively sought advice from technicians at the Huaiji County agriculture department, and sometimes traveled all over the country to lemon-growing places to learn from masters.
In June of that year, Liu Xue planted lemons on 300 mu of reclaimed land. He ran the farm according to new agricultural standards, investing 2 million yuan in land clearing, soil cultivation, infrastructure construction and so on. Liu Xue said that in the first few years, the work was heavy and dull, and it was not until the third year that the planted lemons began to bear fruit. Last year's harvest was good, and this year has ushered in a peak production period.
On the sales side, they sell lemons directly to consumers, avoiding middlemen wholesalers, and the quality of the fruit has also won praise from customers. For several consecutive years, he sent fruit samples to authoritative provincial institutions for testing, and they all met the standards of green food safety testing reports. "The next step will be to apply for organic food certification."
Looking at the lemons promising a bumper harvest, Liu Xue's eyes showed confidence: "By conservative estimate, this year's net income will be 1 million yuan. The next step will be to drive surrounding farmers along, expand the planting area, and build a green food brand." In Liu Xue's ideal, farmers should "live in countryside villas, eat green food, and breathe fresh air."