Laying Duck Farming Makes Ketan Town a 100-Million-Yuan Industry
“Without the Party's policies that benefit the people and the support of livelihood projects, there would be no success in the breeding industry today; without the preferential assistance policies provided by the Party and the government, there would not be the brilliant achievement of being the number one town for laying duck farming in the whole province and even in East China.” These are the heartfelt words of Comrade Zhang Yongyi, president of the Laying Duck Farming Association of Ketan Town, Lujiang County, Anhui Province, a farmer who has become a spark leader in getting rich, a municipal people's congress representative, and a national model worker.
In the autumn of 1999, Zhang Yongyi, who had just graduated from high school, and his father were doing a hatchery chick business in Tongcheng City and had acquired greenhouse laying duck farming technology. He and his father discussed it and decided to invest in building greenhouses to engage in laying duck farming. That year, with the support of the town Party committee and government, he took out a 50,000-yuan loan, leased more than 10 mu of ponds from the production group, and raised one greenhouse of 2,080 laying ducks. Thanks to his diligent study and hard work, he made a net profit of more than 40,000 yuan that year. When the villagers saw that he had made money raising ducks, they all came to his door to learn from him and asked for help to get rich by raising ducks. Zhang Yongyi taught the laying duck technology to his neighbors without reservation. The following year, he got 7 farming households in the village to join in, building greenhouses and raising more than 15,000 laying ducks, with average household income of more than 30,000 yuan, and established the town's first greenhouse laying duck farming community.
In 2002, as laying duck farming continued to heat up and had already achieved good economic benefits, more and more farmers saw the hope of getting rich from it. It grew from a dozen or several dozen households to a massive lineup of several hundred households engaged in greenhouse laying duck farming, and laying duck farming began to spread like a spark starting a prairie fire.
Zhang Yongyi's status rose accordingly, and he became the backbone and spark guide for the duck farmers. The rapid development of laying ducks in Ketan Town received great attention from the Lujiang County Party Committee, the County People's Congress, and the County Government, which organized many visits to the farming communities for inspection, study, and assessment, and supported and recognized this people-enriching industry spontaneously formed by farmers. At the same time, the county and town laying duck farming associations also made a commitment to coordinate preferential policies for small farming loans for farming households, providing each household with 5,000 to 50,000 yuan in support as working capital.
Because greenhouse laying duck farming received strong support from county and town organizations and continued to develop and grow, in 2003 the first laying duck farming association in Lujiang County, Anhui Province, was established. Zhang Yongyi was recommended to serve as its president. The first batch had 456 member households. In the name of the association, it provided pre-production, mid-production, and post-production services for the majority of farming households, organized individually scattered laying duck farmers together, expanded large-scale farming, and connected with large outside markets to reduce farming risks. At the same time, led by the greenhouse laying duck farming association, it organized farming households to go elsewhere to collectively select and introduce young ducks, ensuring that quarantine, epidemic prevention, and disinfection certificates were all complete and improving the survival rate. It supplied feed at a unified fair price, regularly hired experts and professors to come to the community to give lectures, exchange experience, and promptly solve problems in the feeding process. As a result, feeding experience became richer and richer, and sales channels became wider and wider. That year, each greenhouse of laying ducks brought farming households a net income of more than 40,000 yuan. This was a figure the duck farmers had never dared to imagine. Only when they received a generous return did they taste the sweetness of laying duck farming and feel the efforts Zhang Yongyi had made for society and for everyone.
“Without the help of the laying duck farming association, there would be no prosperous life for me today.” Xu Zhiping, who lives in Chengchi Village, Ketan Town, said with deep feeling that he had built his success on the coordinated loan support and assistance of the laying duck farming association. He had no capital, so the association promptly connected with the credit union to guarantee a loan for him to buy ducklings. When he had no money to buy feed, the laying duck farming association again coordinated to provide help, enabling Xu Zhiping to make a net profit of more than 80,000 yuan each year for two consecutive years. The laying duck farming association has benefited not only Xu Zhiping's household, but has also provided working capital for many farming households having difficulty getting started financially, paying out about more than 2 million yuan in working funds each year. Through the organizing, coordinating, and bridging role of the laying duck farming association, the town has now formed 15 laying duck farming communities, more than 1,000 greenhouses, more than 1.2 million laying ducks raised, an annual output of more than 30,000 tons of fresh eggs, an output value of more than 250 million yuan, and an average annual net income per greenhouse of more than 60,000 yuan. Many laying duck farming households have thus embarked on the road to prosperity.
This year, with the support of the town Party committee and government, Zhang Yongyi invested more than 10 million yuan to build “Anhui Lujiang County Yinong Industry and Trade Feed Co., Ltd.,” with an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons, to provide a feed source for greenhouse laying duck farming households.
He invested more than 5 million yuan to establish a poultry egg products processing factory with an annual output of 600 tons, “Anhui Lujiang County Xinguo Food Co., Ltd.,” specifically purchasing unsalable culled old ducks and fresh egg products from duck farmers for deep processing and fine processing, using a “company + farmers + sales” model to extend the laying duck market industry chain, increase the added value of laying duck products, and increase farming households' income.
Relying on the support of innovative scientific research achievements from universities and research institutions such as Zhejiang Agricultural University and Anhui Agricultural University, Zhang Yongyi also promotes and popularizes advanced, standardized farming technology, spreads energy-saving, consumption-reducing, time-saving, and labor-saving farming methods, and provides all-round services for the majority of farming households.
The Ketan Town Party Committee and Government have continuously increased support for laying duck farming, listed it as a leading industry for invigorating the town and enriching the people, formulated and issued a series of preferential policies, and organized coordinated assistance from multiple departments such as finance, credit, agricultural technology, and epidemic prevention to deliver funds, technology, and services to farming households, provide a good development environment for laying duck farming, and make the “cake” of laying duck farming bigger and stronger. In Ketan Town today, what people see most are laying duck greenhouses scattered everywhere, and what people talk about most are the secrets of getting rich through laying duck farming and the central government's heart-warming policies that care about rural areas and farmers. The duck-town farming industry continues to develop and grow, and the surging emotions of the duck farmers are rising with the melody of spring.
Zhang Yongyi's entrepreneurial spirit and model of leading the people to prosperity have been praised by the Party and the masses. He has successively won the titles of Anhui Province “May Fourth Youth Medal,” “Spark Leader in Getting Rich,” and “Outstanding Farmer Entrepreneur.” In May last year, Zhang Yongyi was honorably elected as a national model worker.
Xuzhou