Nan Chong post-80s young man quits high-paying job to realize his farmer dream in an orchard
In early summer June, when the heat had just begun to arrive, a 300-plus-mu pollution-free vineyard in Ganyantang Village, Banzeng Town, Shunqing District remained cool and pleasant. Beneath the dense grape leaves hung clusters of emerald green grapes. On colorful paper tags tied to the vines were written names, blessings, or “inspirational quotes.” “This is a new marketing model we are promoting: grape adoption. Depending on the quality of the grapes, the adoption price per vine ranges from 200 yuan to 600 yuan.” said Dong Wenbin, the cooperative owner. Currently, more than 500 people have adopted over 1,000 grapevines. “After adopting, citizens can come to the park themselves to prune, water, and fertilize, experiencing the joys of rural life. They can also entrust the cooperative to manage the vines free of charge.” Light and shadow filtered through the grape leaves onto Dong Wenbin's sun-darkened face, and this handsome young man's eyes were filled with determination. Over 7 years, through many ups and downs, from migrant worker to interviewee on China Central Television, Dong Wenbin, this farmer's son, finally realized his farmer dream.
Quitting His Job to Return Home, Only to Fulfill His Filial Duty
Dong Wenbin was born in 1984, and both his parents were villagers of Donggangou Village, Fandian Township. In 2001, after failing the college entrance examination, he chose to go out to work. In 2002, he came to a star-rated hotel in Ziyang City, and there he stayed for 7 years. “I was unfamiliar with the people and the place, so I had to rely on myself for everything.” Dong Wenbin recalled that when he first arrived in Ziyang, he started as a waiter, running faster than anyone to serve tea and water, and often being the last one off work. Heaven rewards the diligent, and he was soon noticed by senior company executives, promoted from waiter to team leader, and then from department supervisor to planning department manager of a branch company. In early 2008, he became deputy general manager of the head office. For a time, his family was proud of him, and relatives and friends all praised him.
However, it was in that very year that Dong Wenbin made a move that everyone found unexpected: he resigned from his job and returned home to fulfill his filial duty. “The day I returned home was May 18, 2008, the 6th day after the Wenchuan earthquake.” Even after 8 years, Dong Wenbin still clearly remembered the scene at that time. “My father had stomach cancer. Although he had surgery, his condition was very poor. My younger sister had married far away in Chongqing, and my mother was alone at home, having to take care of my father and do farm work. I had to go back.”
Yearning for Rural Life, Becoming a Farmer
“Where is the way out?” After returning home, while accompanying his father, Dong Wenbin fell into deep thought. His wife also came from Ziyang to Nan Chong to work and earn money. Strong and energetic, he often wandered around the fields, and looking at the soil covering the hills and land, he always held a vision in his heart: he could definitely dig gold out of the soil. Once, Dong Wenbin learned online about three-dimensional rice paddy cultivation and breeding, and he felt as if he had found a treasure: “Raise fish underwater, grow vegetables on the water surface.” Once his thinking was clear, he set out on his first journey as a farmer.
Dong Wenbin said that when he was a child, he occasionally did some farm work at home, but doing it for real like this was still his first time. Not understanding the techniques, he learned from books and the internet. “I built a floating bridge with bamboo poles, cut plastic wire pipes into small sections and fixed them on the floating bridge, and then planted water spinach seedlings inside the wire pipes.” This “mighty” project took him a full month. After planting the vegetables, he also raised several thousand fish. Just as he was waiting confidently for the harvest, his first battle suffered a “Waterloo.”
“Because I was raising fish, I could not apply fertilizer, let alone spray pesticides, so the water spinach looked very poor and nobody would buy it.” The vegetables he had worked so hard to grow attracted no buyers. Dong Wenbin recalled that sometimes the money from selling a cartload of vegetables in the city was not even enough to cover the travel costs, and this stubborn man shed tears for the first time.
In 2011, an opportunity came: an agricultural base in Banzeng Town was put up for transfer. Upon hearing the news, he immediately invited several young people and together they contracted it, beginning his second venture. “At that time, we invested more than 500,000 yuan and planted seasonal vegetables such as cucumbers and tomatoes.” Dong Wenbin said that while developing the vegetable business, he also ran a fruit business. He got up before dawn every day, first going to the wholesale market to buy fruit, then hurrying to the base to manage the vegetables, and at night busying himself delivering fruit to entertainment venues. “At that time, I could only sleep 5 hours a night.”
Several young people worked steadily and diligently, and because the vegetable base fully adopted green cultivation, the products gradually built a reputation in the market. By 2012, Dong Wenbin's pockets were gradually filling up.
Just when Dong Wenbin was full of ambition, in 2013 vegetable prices plummeted. “The wholesale price of cucumbers fell from 7 jiao to 7 fen.” Watching helplessly as the vegetables they had grown rotted in the fields, Dong Wenbin was at his wit's end. That year, Dong Wenbin and his partners each lost nearly 300,000 yuan.
After Repeated Setbacks, Finally Achieving Success
Where you fall, get up from there. After drinking away their gloom for a night, Dong Wenbin and his partners dried their tears and decided to stake everything on one bold move. This time, they learned to leverage outside help.
Dong Wenbin's wife is from Ziyang, and her uncle's family had many years of experience in fruit cultivation, processing, and sales. Why not invite the uncle to come out and help transform the vegetable base into a fruit base? They acted at once. Dong Wenbin invited the uncle over from Ziyang, had him inspect the base and surrounding environment, and explained his own vision. The uncle was moved by the entrepreneurial passion of these young people.
In April 2014, the Cailan Agricultural Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative was officially established with a total investment of 13 million yuan. “We still insist on green cultivation.” Dong Wenbin said that in order to ensure high quality and high yield, the cooperative introduced and promoted pollution-free agricultural product production technology, and successively obtained the titles of “Fruit and Vegetable Rain-Shelter Cultivation Demonstration Cooperative” and “District-Level Modern Standardized Demonstration Base” awarded by the district agriculture and animal husbandry bureau.
In the second half of 2014, 300 mu of grape seedlings carrying hope were planted in the fields. Dong Wenbin said that the grape base was entirely covered with connected greenhouses. “Green cultivation is implemented throughout the whole process.” Apart from one preventive chemical treatment before fruiting, no chemicals were resolutely used at other times.
The reporter noticed that 4 to 5 sticky insect boards hung in every grape greenhouse, covered with small flying insects. “The sticky insect boards are replaced once a month to prevent the grapes from being infected by pathogens. There are 12 grape varieties in total. They begin to ripen from mid-June, and the picking period can last until October.” Dong Wenbin said that in order to ensure grape quality, the base hired more than 10 workers every day to thin the fruit and prune the branches.
“If you don't run the household, you don't know how expensive firewood and rice are.” Dong Wenbin said that there were too many problems and difficulties encountered during the planting process, from technical guidance for workers to coordinating all kinds of relationships, all of which were entirely new subjects for him. But supported by his dream and relying on his tenacious will, he pulled through again and again. Driven by him, the cooperative built a 300-mu grape base integrating planting, tourism, sightseeing, and leisure, while 100 mu of dragon fruit and 200 mu of oil peonies were thriving. In the two years since the cooperative was founded, it had obtained titles such as “Provincial Green, Healthy, and Trustworthy Food Unit,” “Provincial 3A-Level Quality and Integrity Service Unit,” and “Provincial Green Business Advocacy Unit.” In March this year, at the first national “Huashang Brand Ceremony” event, as a representative of post-80s entrepreneurial youth, Dong Wenbin gave a speech sharing his experience and was interviewed by China Central Television.
“Picking fruits of spring, summer, autumn, and winter; welcoming guests from all directions.” Such a couplet hung on the archway of Dong Wenbin's grape base. He said that next, the cooperative would continue to expand its scale, planting fruits such as blueberries, mulberries, peaches, and pears, striving to have fresh fruit to taste in all four seasons. In addition to planting fruit trees, the cooperative also planned a vegetable-picking garden, fishing pond, children's playground, farming pastoral scenery area, and more. Standing at the gate of the grape base, Dong Wenbin looked into the distance, his eyes full of longing.