Post-90s female college graduate in Dongying starts a 200-mu family farm, reaping a double harvest of melons and beans
In July 2015, Ma Chenxiao graduated from Hunan Women's University with a degree in design. After several setbacks and dead ends in her job search, she hit upon a bold idea——start a farm and return to her village to pursue entrepreneurship. As soon as she voiced the idea, quite a few people in the village laughed at her for “having no prospects,” but her father, Ma Shiyu, was willing to help his daughter give it a try. By the end of June this year, the 200-mu “Chenxiao Family Farm” that Ma Chenxiao founded enjoyed a bumper harvest in its very first year, with potato yields reaching over 8,000 jin per mu, part of which has already been sold; the second season's sweet potato slips have also been planted, filling the fields with hope. This venture not only earned Ma Chenxiao her first pot of gold since entering society, but also put idle laborers in the village to work; even neighboring villages have begun to follow suit.
Ma Chenxiao working on her own farm.
The family farm carries Ma Chenxiao's entrepreneurial dream.
The founder of Chenxiao Family Farm is Ma Chenxiao, a 25-year-old post-90s college student from Xiliu Village, Liquan Town, Guangrao County. Speaking of her original motivation for starting the business, she said, “At the time, entrepreneurship was just a concept in my mind, and I didn't know what exactly to do. After I told my dad my idea, considering that the country now has supportive policies for agriculture, we finally decided to start a farm.”
Although she is a country girl born and raised in the countryside, farming was still very unfamiliar to Ma Chenxiao, who had spent years studying away from home; she didn't even know how to do many farm chores. Fortunately, her father had more than 20 years of farming experience, but he was not familiar with the current market situation for agricultural products, so father and daughter were somewhat at a loss for a time. That August, a village-resident secretary named Liu Jianbin happened to arrive in the village, so Ma Shiyu suggested his daughter go to the secretary for help.
“When the secretary heard I wanted to start a farm, he also thought the idea was quite bold and worried that as a girl who had just graduated, I might run into a lot of difficulties. But seeing that my mind was made up, he took me to visit places like Zibo, Shouguang, and the Jinan Academy of Agricultural Sciences to learn about the current state of family farm development. Taking into account factors like product storage and sales, we ultimately decided to try growing potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are relatively low-risk, to see how it went first,” Ma Chenxiao explained.
A double harvest of melons and beans on 200 mu of land
As the saying goes, “Plant melons and you get melons; plant beans and you get beans.” Ma Chenxiao's farm grows both melons and beans. During the wheat harvest season in June, the potatoes on Chenxiao's farm were the first to enjoy a bumper harvest.
“Because most villagers weren't very optimistic about my startup project, many were reluctant when we were contracting the land at the time. We went door to door to do the work, and in total contracted 200 mu of farmland, of which 40 mu was planted with potatoes and 160 mu with sweet potatoes. Relatively speaking, local potato yields can reach around 8,000 jin per mu, which is still quite considerable. At present, the entire first season of potatoes has been harvested, over 30,000 jin have been sold, and the rest is all stored in cellars. As for sweet potatoes, two seasons are grown each year; the first season will be ready for harvest in about a month, and the second season has just been planted,” Ma Chenxiao told reporters. “Because it's the first year of planting, the fertilizer cost input was relatively large, and due to lack of experience, there were also many gaps in management. At the end of May, half a month before the potato harvest, I found diseased potato plants. At the time I thought it was caused by mold, so I applied medication for mold, but the results weren't good. So I collected samples and took them to an agricultural supply store for consultation, and only after asking did I learn it was a kind of pest damage. It improved after targeted treatment, but by then the optimal growing period for the potatoes had already passed, so there was still some delay.”
Reporters learned that the 200-mu farm founded by Ma Chenxiao required an investment of roughly five to six hundred thousand yuan, which is no small sum for a college student who has just graduated. Thanks to everyone's help and support. “Besides what my family supported, most of it was pooled together with the help of relatives and friends. The village secretary also helped arrange an interest-free loan and coordinated the land. My dad provided technical support, and I was responsible for research and coming up with ideas. Only through everyone working together did the farm get off the ground smoothly.”
Driving idle rural laborers to get rich together
After Chenxiao Family Farm was established, it also put idle laborers in the village to work, giving them a channel to earn money. Liu Jianbin, first secretary stationed in Xiliu Village, said in an interview that before this, there were relatively many idle laborers in the village, mainly middle-aged and elderly people in their fifties and sixties, as well as unemployed housewives. Especially for the middle-aged and elderly group, because they help younger family members pick up and drop off children, they cannot travel far; even if they don't look after children, due to their older age, almost no factory will hire them. Apart from busy farming seasons, they are basically idle at home.
Planting seedlings, spraying pesticides, weeding, and harvesting on the farm all require manpower, and Chenxiao's family alone certainly couldn't handle it all. The farm hires farm workers from time to time to help, and the village's idle laborers are naturally the first choice. This gives everyone a channel to earn money and drives everyone to get rich together. “After Chenxiao's family started their farm, idle laborers found work right at their doorstep, without delaying either picking up the children or earning money. Now, quite a few people in the village come to the village committee to inquire, some wanting to grow vegetables in greenhouses, and others wanting to start farms or engage in breeding. It has expanded the villagers' options for getting rich,” Liu Jianbin said.
Speaking of the difficulties the farm currently faces, Liu Jianbin believes the biggest one is still funding. To expand the scale of the farm and build high-temperature greenhouses, besides lacking financial support, there is also a lack of high-profit project choices, and then there is the need for professional and advanced technical guidance. “Running your own farm and being your own boss definitely means enduring hardship first, constantly learning from others, not fearing failure, and boldly exploring the way forward. Right now, the farm is mainly about building connections, opening up the market first; after growing good crops, we also need to broaden sales channels so the products can be sold smoothly,” Ma Chenxiao said.