Tiandeng County pig-farming star leads the masses onto the road to prosperity

In a clean, tidy pigpen, the Large White pigs eating with relish are plump and strong, with glossy coats. Wu Shiwei, director of the Shimingyuan Pig Farming Cooperative in Tiandeng County, who was carefully examining the pigs together with a technician, told the reporter: "Right now the price of live pigs has reached ten yuan eighty, ten yuan ninety per jin; on days when pigs are scarce, the live pig price can rise to 11 yuan per jin. It is expected that this year the entire pig farm's sales revenue will be around 12 million yuan."

Wu Shiwei's pig farm was established with investment in 2007 and is called Shimingyuan Pig Farm. Having dealt with pigs for 25 years, and thanks to his outstanding achievements, Wu Shiwei has won honorary titles such as "2009 Advanced Individual in Entrepreneurship", "2013 Advanced Individual", and "2011 Chongzuo City Science and Technology Leader in Breeding and Planting".

When Wu Shiwei was a child, his family was relatively poor, and his parents scrimped and saved to put him and his five siblings through their schooling. "When I was in middle school, I saw that the village veterinarian earned income from making house calls every day, so I secretly made up my mind to get into a veterinary school, and after graduating, open a small pig farm and earn income from house calls to ease the family burden," Wu Shiwei told the reporter.

Hard work pays off, and Wu Shiwei ultimately got into Liuzhou Animal Husbandry and Veterinary School as he had wished. After graduating in 1991, he went to work at the county veterinary station. To outsiders, having a stable job was already quite good, but Wu Shiwei did not think so; he still quietly made all kinds of preparations to achieve his goal. During his work, he worked hard to study scientific pig-farming methods and accumulated a wealth of pig-farming knowledge. In 1997, with his wife's support, Wu Shiwei opened a veterinary medicine and feed shop. Because the goods were high quality and low priced and the service attitude was good, he gained the support and recognition of the broad masses. While doing his unit's work well, Wu Shiwei also squeezed out time to go to various villages to diagnose and treat livestock for the masses, solving difficulties for the masses in breeding, and he was highly praised by the broad masses. Since 1998, Wu Shiwei's business has become more and more prosperous, and more and more people have supported him and benefited from his help. "With the strong support of the masses, I realized that if more people are to become wealthy, there must be leaders in getting rich, guiding the masses to develop the breeding industry and walk out a distinctive road to prosperity," Wu Shiwei said.

With this determination, he kept working hard to realize the dream of leading the masses to wealth. In 2000, Wu Shiwei made a major decision: he resolutely resigned from his job at the county veterinary station, bidding farewell to the county veterinary station where he had worked for 9 years. "Some people said I was foolish not to keep such a good job, and at the time some relatives opposed it too, but no matter how difficult the road chosen, as long as you choose it and come to love it, you must do it well and see it through, and use the results to prove it to relatives and those around you who had objections," Wu Shiwei said firmly.

In 2007, with the support of the county Aquatic Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, Wu Shiwei invested 2 million yuan to create Shimingyuan Pig Farm. Because he had mastered the operation and management of the pig farm, he achieved very good returns for several consecutive years. After learning that there was still great room in the county's live pig market, Wu Shiwei decided to expand the scope of operations. Using Shimingyuan Pig Farm as the base, in June 2009 he took the lead in establishing the Tiandeng County Shimingyuan Pig Farming Cooperative. The cooperative's operating area is more than 300 sq m, mainly dealing in feed, feed additives, veterinary medicine and breeding raw materials (corn, wheat bran, soybean meal, rice bran, etc.), with annual sales of feed and raw materials of more than 10,000 tons and sales revenue of more than 30 million yuan. The cooperative, together with the county Aquatic Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, adopted the methods of "passing on, helping, guiding and delivering", and by providing services such as breeding pigs, pig semen, piglets, feed, veterinary medicine and technology, it spurred members' enthusiasm for pig farming. There are now more than 4,000 member households, distributed across 13 townships and towns in Tiandeng County and villages such as Longguang and Tuhu in Debao County, and it has cooperated with 7 people including Ban Xiangjiang of Xiangdu Town and Ling Wei and Liang Enying of Tuokan Township to jointly build seven small-scale pig farms. The cooperative's total annual output of piglets and meat pigs is more than 10,000 head, with sales revenue of more than 10 million yuan.

In 2010, the cooperative was rated as a "Guangxi Region Key Leading Enterprise in the Aquatic Animal Husbandry Industry", and the cooperative's breeding base was also rated by the Chongzuo City Science and Technology Bureau as a "Science and Technology Demonstration Base for Breeding and Planting".

Wu Shiwei's wish is to lead more people to get rich by raising pigs. The establishment of the cooperative built a better platform for Wu Shiwei to better lead the masses to wealth. Ban Xiangjiang of Dingming Village, Xiangdu Town, took the initiative to contact Wu Shiwei and planned to build a small pig farm, but faced the problem of insufficient funds, and on top of that there was no source for follow-up breeding pigs, piglets or feed. After an on-site inspection and guiding him in building the farm, Wu Shiwei selected 20 sows and 50 meat piglets from his own pig farm for him to raise, and supplied feed. After four months of raising, 50 meat pigs were sent to market, yielding a profit of more than 30,000 yuan. He then continued to bring back 50 meat piglets to raise. The following year, the 20 sows farrowed one after another. Through self-breeding and self-raising, and by seizing market conditions, his pig farm has now grown to 70 breeding sows and more than 200 meat pigs on hand. Having become wealthy through pig farming, Ban Xiangjiang bought a house and a car in the county town, bought a storefront to expand his business, and also started an aluminum alloy processing business. There are many more examples of Wu Shiwei leading the masses to wealth, such as Nong Shaozhen and Ling Enying of Tongtun, Tuokan Township, and Wu Fenghai of Gumi Tun, Hongling Village, all of whom, through the method of first supplying piglets and feed and settling payment later, threw off poverty one after another and bought private cars. Under Wu Shiwei's drive, the surrounding masses set off a wave of becoming wealthy through pig farming, and because of this Wu Shiwei became the "pig-farming star" in the hearts of the broad surrounding masses.