Sika deer farming sets Luo Shizheng on the road to entrepreneurship

On July 10, during an interview in Hengshi Village, Puji Town, Wangcang County, the author learned that Luo Shizheng, a villager from Group 7 of the village, had explored a sika deer farming industry suited to local development while returning home to start a business after working away from home. Not only did he succeed in his own venture, but he also led 5 households in the village onto a path of specialty farming.

"People today have ever higher expectations for health, and deer antler and deer bone both have important medicinal and economic value, so sika deer farming has very good market prospects," Luo Shizheng said. He explained that when he worked in Northeast China years ago, he found that many local people had become wealthy by farming sika deer, while no one in his hometown was raising them, so he felt this was an industry worth trying.

Luo Shizheng said that in early last year, after going to Changchun, Jilin to study sika deer farming techniques, he became even more determined. He invested 320,000 yuan in succession to build a farm of more than 240 sq m and introduced 30 Shuangyang-type sika deer, beginning his entrepreneurial journey.

"Sika deer farming is delicate work," Luo Shizheng explained. "They eat dry grass in the morning and evening and fresh grass at noon. You cannot give them feed with too much moisture. Things like sweet potato vines, cabbage and orchid cabbage must be dried until they have little moisture left before they can be eaten, and they must have drinking water every day."

In order to raise the sika deer well, whenever he had time he seized the opportunity to study sika deer farming knowledge, browse deer farming information online, and constantly summarise and improve practical techniques for cleaning the pens, feeding, cooling and disease prevention.

Luo Shizheng explained that a male deer can live up to 15 years. Apart from the three-year growth period when it produces no antler, the antler produced over a male deer's lifetime can sell for about 120,000 yuan. Sika deer that do not produce antler can still be sold to restaurants at 6,000 yuan each. Add in income from deer whip, deer sinew, deer tail and so on, and after deducting the roughly 1,500 yuan annual farming cost per sika deer, raising one male deer can earn more than 100,000 yuan.

In order to encourage more villagers to farm sika deer, Luo Shizheng established Jingyuyuan Deer Industry Co., Ltd. in December last year. "At present, 5 households have already signed farming agreements with me. In July we plan to go to Northeast China to buy 100 adult deer and bring them back, distribute them to local people to raise, and then collect and sell them in a unified way," Luo Shizheng said.

"Every part of the sika deer is valuable. Right now I can only harvest antler. The next step is to develop a relatively complete deer product industry chain so income will be higher," Luo Shizheng said. He plans to bring in fine-processing equipment for deer products and gradually produce a series of products such as deer meat, deer hide and deer bone liquor in the future to increase the added value of deer products.

"Next, I plan to invest another 2 million yuan to expand the scale of sika deer farming and, through the 'company + farmers' model, help more fellow villagers escape poverty and become prosperous," Luo Shizheng said, full of confidence in the future.