Zhao Meng makes leading the masses out of poverty and toward prosperity his first priority

The 20 candidates for the 2016 "Most Beautiful Village Official in Henan" were announced recently, and Zhao Meng, Party branch secretary and village committee director of Weizhuang Village, Zhushi Town, Yicheng District, Zhumadian City, stands out among them for his outstanding deeds. When the news came, the cadres and masses of Zhushi Town spread the word to one another, feeling proud that their area had such a leader guiding the masses toward prosperity.

Weizhuang Village is located 16 kilometers northwest of the urban area of Zhumadian, on the north side of the Zhuwen Highway on the west bank of the Ru River. It has 9 natural villages and a total population of more than 3,200. It is rich in water sources and has fertile land, suitable for the growth of trees, fruits and vegetables, flowers and other plants, with good vegetation and ecological conditions.

In 2003, Zhao Meng, who had achieved considerable success developing business elsewhere, was invited back to his hometown to start a business. Relying on Zhushi Town's advantage of abundant high-quality groundwater resources, he founded Zhumadian Senmiao Food Co., Ltd., and after several years of operation, the business was thriving. At the end of 2011, in the election for a new term of the village's two committees, Zhao Meng was elected by the villagers with all votes to the positions of village Party branch secretary and village committee director. Facing the expectations and trust of his fellow villagers, Zhao Meng was both deeply moved and under great pressure: "I'm afraid of doing a poor job and letting down my elders and fellow villagers."

Zhao Meng did not hesitate or slack off. In recent years, he has firmly seized the opportunities presented by our city's vigorous promotion of new urbanization and the development of modern ecological agriculture, leading the masses to actively advance whole-village land transfer and develop large-scale, high-efficiency agriculture. He laid out planting areas for fruit, vegetables, field crops, ornamental plants and more throughout the village, established the Xinjiayuan Farmers' Planting Professional Cooperative and an agricultural science and technology development company, with a grape planting area of more than 1,000 mu and an agricultural picking garden of more than 500 mu. He also relied on characteristic agriculture to drive the development of the transport industry, shipping nearly 10,000 kilograms of vegetables every day, turning a poor village with a per capita income of less than 2,000 yuan into a municipal-level rural agricultural demonstration village with a per capita income of more than 6,000 yuan.

Everything is hard at the beginning. To explore a path for the villagers to become prosperous, after the 2012 Spring Festival, Zhao Meng calmed down and thought deeply, conducted a comprehensive analysis of local advantages and repeated verification, and finally decided to develop high-quality vegetables to lead the masses toward prosperity. In 2012, at his own expense, he took some fellow villagers who had ideas to Shouguang, Shandong, to study vegetable cultivation. After returning, he worked on the villagers from many angles and gave each household that built a vegetable greenhouse a reward of 10,000 yuan. At the same time, through investment promotion, 6 million yuan was invested to build the Zhumadian Yinong Fengda high-quality vegetable production base. That year, the village's vegetable planting expanded to more than 200 mu, with income reaching 1 million yuan, not only enabling villagers to find employment at their doorstep but also increasing per capita income by more than 1,000 yuan.

In the second half of 2012, Zhao Meng saw that grape cultivation was quite profitable, so he called on villagers to plant grapes. However, many people were doubtful. To dispel the villagers' concerns, he organized village representatives to visit Shaanxi, Hebei and other places to study grape cultivation and winemaking techniques, and went to the provincial academy of agricultural sciences to seek technical support, but still few responded. In March 2013, through land transfer, he first planted 100 mu of grapes himself. At the same time, he took out 700,000 yuan to help villagers without funds to level the land, bury poles, string wire and buy grape seedlings, and promised the villagers: if they made money, it would be theirs; if they lost money, it would be his. Absolute sincerity moves even stone. Under his leadership, a 300-mu grape planting base integrating picking and sightseeing was soon planted with high-quality grapes such as "Jinshouzhi" and "Xiahei". At present, Weizhuang Village has built a high-quality grape planting park of more than 500 mu, and has driven some farming households to engage in grape cultivation, forming a relatively large sightseeing and picking grape garden in the southern Henan region, and was awarded the grape experimental base of the Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences. To make full use of land resources, Zhao Meng also guided villagers to interplant grapes with peas and peanuts. This alone brought villagers an income of more than 2,000 yuan per mu.

Developing characteristic breeding is another "magic weapon" Zhao Meng uses to lead his fellow villagers to prosperity. To develop pollution-free characteristic breeding and three-dimensional breeding, Zhao Meng organized representative specialized breeding households to go out for study and inspection. Today, Weizhuang Village has more than 10 large-scale breeding households raising pigs, chickens, sheep and more, represented by the Lulu Animal Husbandry Breeding Farm, including 3 large breeding farms (Lulu Animal Husbandry, Shuangxi Breeding Chicken Farm, Jianjun Sheep Farm) and 1 characteristic breeding farm (Liye Five Black Chicken Breeding Farm). Lulu Animal Husbandry was the first to achieve standardized pig production management and was rated a "municipal leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization", while the person in charge of Shuangxi Chicken Farm was rated a municipal leader in becoming prosperous through science and technology.

In order to lead his fellow villagers onto the road to prosperity together, Zhao Meng broadened his thinking and actively sought projects and cooperation. In 2013, Zhao Meng learned that Jinkai Group, one of Henan's top 50 enterprises, planned to carry out large-scale land transfer in Nanyang. Believing this project would benefit the development of Weizhuang Village, he reported it to relevant leaders and went to Jinkai Group's headquarters six times in a row to negotiate, ultimately facilitating Jinkai Group's establishment of a 10,000-mu high-efficiency agricultural park centered on Weizhuang Village, with 7,000 mu of land transferred. Through Zhao Meng's active efforts, on September 25, 2014, the Yicheng District government signed an ecological agricultural tourism and sightseeing project for Weizhuang Village, Zhushi Town, with Shandong Shengbo Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., with a total investment of 820 million yuan. Afterwards, the village also attracted Shandong Shuangbei Ecological Development Co., Ltd., which relied on the old course of the Ru River to build a 3,000-mu modern sightseeing farm, while also creating the relatively large inland Central Plains beach bathing area "Yunmeng Lake" riverside leisure zone, further building up momentum for the development of the village collective economy.

Over the past few years, Zhao Meng not only focused his mind on developing the economy, but also did a great deal to improve the village's infrastructure and care for poor villagers. When he saw that the village roads had long been in disrepair, he took out 150,000 yuan himself to repair all the roads; when he learned that villager Liu Qun's child was ill and had no money for treatment, he quietly left 3,000 yuan in Liu Qun's home; on every important holiday, he would bring money and daily necessities he had bought to the homes of disadvantaged villagers... His footprints were left in every household in the village, and no one can say clearly just how many good deeds he has done for the villagers.

"As the village Party branch secretary, leading the masses out of poverty and toward prosperity is the first priority." Looking back on these unforgettable years, Zhao Meng said firmly and confidently.