The two-end-black pigs raised by a pig herder deep in the mountains can actually swim

When you arrive at a mountain hollow in Dashi Village, Xinxing Town, locally known as "Swallow's Nest," and stand on the spacious platform looking down, you see the distant mountains embraced by white clouds, terraces of green tea guarding a clear pool, and several rows of neat buildings faintly visible beneath sturdy glossy privet trees, with a cool breeze sweeping past and occasional hints of osmanthus fragrance.

There is blue sky, white clouds, green trees, and a clear pool - truly a blessed place for well-being. The pleasant scenery before his eyes deceived this reporter's eyes; if Chen Liwei had not untimely added, "Those six rows of buildings below are the pig farm," in a daze, one really would have thought one had come on vacation.

Descending from the platform and heading toward the pig pens, while walking and listening to Chen Liwei tell an amusing story from a few days earlier: a pig ran into the clear pool by itself, and just as the keeper was getting ready to go into the water, it swam back by itself. "The pigs are free-range? And they can even swim? Don't overturn my impressions too much, all right?"

"Our pigs are raised with a combination of confined and free-range methods." Chen Liwei explained that to ensure the pork is delicious, besides carefully selecting and matching Jinhua two-end-black sows and boars, they also insist on "welfare" farming. Between the rows of pig pens they planted glossy privet, osmanthus, and other air-purifying landscape trees, specially set aside 6 mu of land to grow sweet potatoes, ryegrass, and other green feed, piped in pure spring water from the other side of the mountain, and set up farrowing rooms, nursery pens, fattening pens, gestation stalls, and so on according to the pigs' different growth stages. Garden-style pig pens, pollution-free feeding, and a farming cycle that follows nature, with no injections or medicine all year round, both body and mind healthy, naturally excellent meat quality. "Our pork sells for 30 yuan per jin, and still demand exceeds supply." Speaking of this, Chen Liwei looked full of pride.

When asked why he had chosen such a place far from human habitation for farming, Chen Liwei said it was to respond to the provincial party committee's call to "move livestock into the mountains, move farming up the slopes." In June 2011, when Chen Liwei was the first to decide to bring pigs deep into the mountains, almost no one understood, and some even asked him why he was doing such a "foolish thing." The large-scale farm at the end of Dashi Village was doing just fine - what had gotten into him? And if he was going to move, fine, but to move to such a remote mountain forest - was he sick or something?

But the farsighted Chen Liwei did not think so. He said the original farm had an annual output of more than 800 sows, and the profits at the time were indeed good, but after all it was close to Songyin Stream, and it used traditional farming methods with sewage discharged directly, affecting the environment. Passing villagers, out of courtesy, did not say it stank, but he knew himself that this was not a long-term solution. Since he had chosen to move, he had to move thoroughly, and he absolutely had to stay far from villages and far from crowds, so they would not smell even a trace of odor again.

At the time, the mountain hollow Chen Liwei had his eye on was originally a natural village called Liding, and because of the good policy of "poverty alleviation by moving down the mountain," the whole village had moved to the foot of the mountain. "This is still a piece of feng shui treasure land." Chen Liwei said this place, locally known as "Swallow's Nest," clearly gathers good fortune. Borrowing the beautiful implication of the name, Chen Liwei went forward without hesitation, cutting into the mountain, building roads, constructing buildings, planting trees, then installing biogas digesters and burying drip irrigation pipes. By the end of 2011, a new type of pig farm with advanced facilities and a good environment was finally completed. "To level the hill, the machinery costs alone for excavators, loaders, and so on came to 180,000 yuan." Chen Liwei said this place is 3 km from Dashi Village, and originally had no road, no electricity, and no water, so building it was quite laborious and costly. The more than 3,000 sq m of pig housing required an investment of more than 5 million yuan to complete."

Afterward, based on the terrain, Chen Liwei also planted tea, navel oranges, pears, and so on around the pig farm. Now the entire base area reaches more than 500 mu, with an annual output of more than 1,300 live pigs.

On the tea hill, this reporter saw that the tea buds here were plumper and more uniform, and the leaves denser and firmer. When asked why, Chen Liwei said that every day the workers first process the pig waste by solid-liquid separation; the solid part is used as organic fertilizer, while the sewage is discharged into biogas digesters, and after forming biogas slurry it is drip-irrigated to the tea trees through underground pipes, so the tea trees here grow better and yield more. "This all benefits from the advanced scientific pig-farming process invested in from the very beginning." Chen Liwei said that the more than 1 million yuan invested at the start to build these sewage treatment processes was originally only meant to ensure "the environmental protection high-voltage line cannot be touched," but unexpectedly, the separated biogas slurry had extremely high nutrient content and was very beneficial to the growth of tea trees, fruit trees, and landscape trees.

Therefore, he decided that in the second half of the year he would continue to increase investment and add more drip irrigation technology. At the same time, he would intersperse low-growing greenery beneath the large trees to make the overall layout more beautiful and harmonious, forming a three-dimensional plant landscape with an orderly mix of heights. In addition, probes would be installed in the pig pens to carry out full-process monitoring of all pig housing.

Strolling along the path with fresh air, breathing among the woods with gentle sunlight, the pigs here, because of a beautiful owner, have a beautiful life.