Wannan yellow cattle are naturally free-range raised deep in the mountains
Yang Aiwu's Wannan yellow cattle farm is located halfway up a mountain in Wushi Town, Huangshan District, upstream of Taiping Lake, in a beautiful environment. The Wannan yellow cattle that leave the farm here are highly sought after by urban consumers because they are free-range raised deep in the mountains.
Returning home to start a farm
On June 23, the reporter came to the Wannan yellow cattle farm in the mountains of Wushi Town, Huangshan District, Huangshan City. Surrounded by mountains, with grassland below the mountains and Taiping Lake beside it, the farm sits in a remote spot. After walking about ten minutes in the mountains, the reporter saw a large herd of yellow cattle cooling off in the shade by the grassland. Compared with northern Anhui yellow cattle, Wannan yellow cattle are much smaller. "What I raise here are Wannan yellow cattle native to this area. This breed is small in build, and after leaving the farm each animal yields only 200-300 jin of meat, but the taste is excellent." Yang Aiwu, 48 this year, is the owner of this farm. Yang Aiwu told the reporter that in 1991 he left home for Wenzhou, Zhejiang, and worked at an advertising company. In 1997 the company sent him to work in Yichang, Hubei Province, as branch manager. Several years of tempering allowed him to accumulate fairly rich industry knowledge and connections. In 1999 he resigned and registered and established his own advertising company, and in the following years the company developed steadily.
In 2005 he decided to return to his hometown and enter agriculture. In September of that year, he transferred several hundred mu of barren hills and began building roads, supplying water, supplying electricity, and building a pig farm.
Good ecological free-range environment
His pig business developed quickly, but the risks were also great. Once, more than 300 piglets he purchased died of disease, causing losses of several hundred thousand yuan; and pork prices fluctuated greatly, making the market even harder to grasp, so he decided to change careers for the second time.
In 2012, an animal husbandry expert in the province told him: "Wannan yellow cattle are a top-grade beef cattle, and their numbers are currently decreasing, so the prospects for raising them look good." These words made him decide to begin raising Wannan yellow cattle. That year he invested more than 400,000 yuan and purchased 38 yellow cattle, and afterward expanded the breeding scale year by year.
Yang Aiwu registered and established Dashanli Ecological Agriculture Development Co., Ltd., and invested several million yuan to build a 2000 sq m cattle barn, a 200 sq m feed processing workshop, a 150 cubic meter dry manure storage pit, as well as a veterinary room, disinfection room and warehouse. In 2015, two medium-sized biogas digesters were built for recycling waste. The relatively complete infrastructure laid a good foundation for the development of the cattle-raising business. At the same time, Yang Aiwu established scientific research cooperation relationships with Anhui Agricultural University and other institutions, and registered the "Shanli Niu" product trademark.
Yang Aiwu said that he does not raise Wannan yellow cattle in pens, but completely free-range in the mountains. "If yellow cattle are raised in pens, although the growth speed is fast, the yellow cattle meat quality is poor and there are many diseases." Wushi Town has especially many grassy flats and grassy slopes, which were wasted in the past, and this is exactly a good place for raising cattle. "At present there are 5500 mu of usable grassland and more than 500 Wannan yellow cattle on hand." As for the cow dung disposal problem that gives many cattle raisers headaches, Yang Aiwu told the reporter that cow dung is a treasure here. He has planted several hundred mu of nursery stock, more than 100 mu of forage grass, and 200 mu of Huizhou large yellow chrysanthemums, and cow dung happens to be a high-quality organic fertilizer. "Because grassland resources are abundant, my cattle-raising costs here are not high. One animal leaves the farm in three years, the cost is about 4000 yuan, and the profit per animal can reach 6000 yuan."
Building direct sales stores in big cities
Yang Aiwu said that the small Wannan yellow cattle he raises drink mountain spring water and eat unpolluted green grass, so the beef quality is very good and it is well received by consumers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. "In Hangzhou and Nanjing, I invested 1 million yuan to build two beef direct sales stores. Although the price is as high as 80 yuan per jin, demand still exceeds supply." He has also repeatedly organized consumers from Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and other places to come to the farm in Wushi Town to experience the good environment here. In 2015 alone, he sold 30,000 jin of beef.
Speaking of his new plans for this year, Yang Aiwu plans to use his cattle farm as a demonstration to drive surrounding farmers to join the ranks of raising Wannan yellow cattle, and then, through the "company + farmers" model, expand the total number raised to more than 10,000 head, and ultimately form an industrial chain centered on beef processing, with products aimed at the mid-to-high-end market, and build up his own green agriculture brand.