How do you plant a "wealth-building tree"? A Peking University master's graduate leads farmers to increase income and prosperity

Chen Wenkai, a member of the "post-85 generation," is 31 years old this year. In 2012, with the halo of a Peking University master's degree, he became an ordinary college-graduate village official in Linguo Village, Xincheng Town, Yizheng, and embarked on the path of entrepreneurship. Over more than four years, with his own persistence, he has continuously led local farmers onto the road to prosperity, letting his dreams shine brightly in the fertile soil of the countryside. Since beginning his work in the village, Chen Wenkai has successively received honors including one of Yangzhou's Top Ten Youth Entrepreneurship Stars, an Outstanding College-Graduate Entrepreneur of Jiangsu Province, and one of Jiangsu's Most Beautiful College Graduates, and has won broad recognition from the public and society through his practical achievements.

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Chen Wenkai was born in a rural area of Henan and graduated from Peking University with a major in Western Philosophy. He once studied in Germany for a year, making him a sort of "half returnee" from overseas. In 2012, after graduating with his master's degree, he gave up the opportunity to stay and work in a big city and came to Yizheng to serve as a village official, which left many people surprised and puzzled.

"I'm from the countryside, and the countryside is actually wonderful. Only by truly taking root in it can you feel the joy here." When he came to the village in 2012, Chen Wenkai brought village officials along as "translators" and visited nearly one hundred households in the village, from subsistence-allowance households and left-behind children to people in difficulty and veteran Party members, thoroughly surveying the village's situation and recording it in his work notebook.

During his visits, Chen Wenkai found that many villagers were not very enthusiastic about farming grain, but quite a few wanted to cultivate some cash crops. In 2013, Chen Wenkai suggested to the village that, with the village collective and willing villagers as the main participants, a nursery stock professional cooperative be established to develop the landscaping seedling industry and promote shared income growth for the villagers.

"Growing nursery stock takes three years before you see results. I can't just wait bitterly for three years." Chen Wenkai came up with a solution: have everyone interplant soybeans among the trees and develop three-dimensional agriculture. Chen Wenkai planted 20 mu as a demonstration, estimating that the net income per mu could reach about 2,000 yuan. The 20 mu of soybeans grew very well and matured quickly. Chen Wenkai hauled a cartload of soybeans to the Yizheng vegetable market for wholesale, but unexpectedly ran into trouble selling them. After returning with the unsold soybeans, Chen Wenkai spent a sleepless night, and finally hit on the idea of selling the soybeans directly to residents of nearby communities. He acted at once, organizing people to package the soybeans in five-jin packs and, under the brand "College-Graduate Village Official Entrepreneurship Park Soybeans," hauled them to the local Xinbei Huayuan community. When residents heard that the soybeans were grown by a college-graduate village official as an entrepreneurial venture, they came in droves to buy them, and they sold out in less than half an hour. Seeing this, some villagers took Chen Wenkai's hand and said, "This young man can endure hardship and has ideas. From now on, we'll follow you!"

In May 2013, Chen Wenkai's entrepreneurial project to lead villagers to prosperity, the Linguo Kaiyuan Flowers and Nursery Stock Professional Cooperative, was registered and established. The cooperative received support from higher-level government, but having long been accustomed to growing grain, many farmers found it hard to accept switching to flowers and trees all at once. For this reason, Chen Wenkai held countless meetings of villager representatives. "In the countryside, you must do the work with the ordinary people well and make sure they fully understand the cooperative's situation, or it definitely won't last long." The cooperative eventually won the people's support, covering 186 mu and attracting 150 households of villagers to join.

By the end of 2014, the cooperative's landscaping seedling base had expanded to 296.2 mu. In 2015, the cooperative's nursery officially began seedling operations, but at that time the seedling market was sluggish. After market research, Chen Wenkai resolutely founded a landscaping company to take on landscaping projects externally and maximize the added value of the seedlings. After the landscaping company began operating, the first project it completed was the Masan Road greening project. The weather did not cooperate: on the very night the first batch of saplings was planted, a violent windstorm and rainstorm struck. Chen Wenkai immediately got out of bed, rushed to the site, and patrolled along Masan Road through the wind and rain, propping up the fallen trees one by one. In Chen Wenkai's heart, these trees were the fruit of hard work cultivated together by himself and the villagers, the "money trees" for prosperity, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong with them.

To create a diversified product structure, Chen Wenkai focused on developing a three-dimensional ecological forestry economy centered on cultivating landscaping seedlings, supplemented by understory planting and breeding. The seedlings include 11 landscaping tree species such as camphor, southern magnolia, trident maple, and red-leaf peach, while the understory economy includes 4 varieties of beans such as black beans, green beans, soybeans, and red beans, as well as poultry meat and egg products such as improved-breed chickens and grass geese. In recent years, Chen Wenkai has used the internet's vast information and convenient communication features to comprehensively expand the cooperative's customer base, establish basic files for existing consumers, record consumer preferences, improve after-sales service, deepen customer relationships, and provide customers with more value-added services.

The cooperative revitalized the collective economy of the entire Linguo Village, enabling villagers to live a life of "shared prosperity." Data shows that over more than three years of project operation, seedling operations, landscaping projects, and the understory economy have generated cumulative revenue of more than 2.6 million yuan, driven 139 nearby households to start businesses, and boosted participating villagers' income by more than 700 yuan per mu per year.

Now, Chen Wenkai serves as deputy director of the Linguo Village Villagers' Committee in Xincheng Town, secretary of the Xincheng Town Youth League Committee, and Party branch secretary of the Xinbei Huayuan community. In the past two years, he also married a local girl and had a child, truly taking root in this land and making Linguo Village his true home.

Harboring a youthful entrepreneurial dream and persisting in taking root in the fields, Chen Wenkai has overcome numerous difficulties over these years. Chen Wenkai says that it is not easy for a college-graduate village official to start a business empty-handed, and that throughout his entrepreneurial journey he has also received support and help from all sides locally. Now he not only feels that his original choice was right, but is also moved by the warmth and trust the local people have given him.

"After finally escaping the farming life, why return to the countryside?" Faced with the reporter's question, Chen Wenkai said: "People must always have pursuits and take on responsibilities. No matter how much you study, you are still a passerby in history. You must always do something for the country and society and leave a little trace. Where does China need talent most? It is this land beneath my feet, and I just want to do something for them."