Zhang Haijun leads more fellow villagers to get rich together
Grapevines laden with fruit, fresh pollution-free vegetables in the greenhouses, golden carp in the ponds... During the Minor Heat period, Wufu Farm, built by the Xingyang Wufu Agriculture and Forestry Cooperative, has become a great place for tourists to vacation and relax.
In the autumn of 2012, Zhang Haijun, a returning entrepreneur from Shifang Village, Gaocun Township, Xingyang City, established a cooperative and built a farm so that everyone could live a good life. This endeavor completely transformed the lives of the villagers.
Because his family was poor, Zhang Haijun, born in 1960, shouldered the burden of his family early on. More than twenty years of struggle and hard work away from home forged his strong, unyielding character and his willingness to take responsibility. His experience as a migrant worker and in business made him a new type of farmer with new ideas and new concepts.
As his income gradually grew, Zhang Haijun always kept his hometown in his thoughts. In 2012, while doing business elsewhere, he seized the policy opportunity of land transfer, signed land transfer and employment contracts with the village, transferred 500 mu of land from the villagers, established a cooperative, built a farm, and developed agriculture and forestry industries.
Zhang Haijun treated the farm as his home and devoted himself wholeheartedly to its development. The former yellow-grass slope was transformed into a mountain of gold. In the 4 years since returning home to start his business, Zhang Haijun has invested a cumulative total of more than 6 million yuan, planting trees such as goldenrain tree, Chinese ash, and plane tree, as well as fruit trees including organic grapes, peach trees, apple trees, pear trees, and soft-seeded pomegranates, along with various green vegetables. Today, the cooperative focuses on sightseeing ecological agriculture, with specialty dining and membership-based green vegetable delivery as its main lines, and leisure tourism driving related industrial chains. Zhang Haijun told reporters that the next step will be to sell Wufu Manor's specialty agricultural products nationwide through internet e-commerce.
Large-scale production has changed the traditional farming model of Shifang Village and also transformed the local villagers' awareness of development. Zhang Haijun said: "Large-scale production has solved the employment problem of local surplus labor, and also led a group of people to take up scientific farming and breeding, finding a good path to increase villagers' income." All the labor used at Wufu Farm comes from the village.
At present, Zhang Haijun's greatest wish is to make his business bigger and stronger, and to lead more fellow villagers to get rich together.