Developing selenium-enriched agriculture has made my entrepreneurial dream no longer just a dream

Three years ago, several young university students planted their "entrepreneurial dream" in the selenium-enriched soil of Ping'an District, Haidong City. Three years later, riding the tailwind of "selenium," they have realized their entrepreneurial dreams.

"At the end of 2013, I learned through a friend that the winter-warm greenhouse sheds at the Baishengou selenium-enriched fruit tree planting demonstration base in Ping'an District were being rented out to college and technical school graduates. After discussing it with my family, I rented 19 sheds," said Li Zhanping, a university student entrepreneur. That year, with the coordination of the Ping'an District Youth League Committee, Li Zhanping and the others were able to enjoy preferential policies that included two years of rent-free shed use and a loan of 10,000 yuan per shed. With that, several university students gave up careers as general managers of internet companies, angels in white, and other professions, and embarked on the entrepreneurial path of developing fruit and vegetable cultivation, "facing the yellow earth with their backs to the sky."

When they started their business in 2013, fruit tree saplings were planted and vegetable seeds were sown in the greenhouses, but there was no water, and the saplings were on the verge of withering. When the vegetables reached maturity, they could not afford labor costs, so they could only call on family members to help pick the vegetables. Because vegetable prices were too low, many vegetables could not be sold, and some of them once set up stalls at the morning market themselves to sell vegetables. "At the beginning, the selenium-enriched base had not been fully built yet. Things like water and roads were not yet complete. The saplings had no water and lay collapsed on the ground from dryness. The Ping'an District Youth League Committee coordinated with the fire brigade, and they drove the fire truck over to water our saplings," said Gan Ning, a university student entrepreneur and member of the Ping'an Chuangqing Selenium-Enriched Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative. That year, due to reasons such as incomplete infrastructure and immature planting techniques, each of their 19 greenhouses basically had "zero income."

In 2014, "there was about 12,000 yuan in income, at least enough to pay the labor costs," Gan Ning said. In 2015, after deducting labor costs, each of Gan Ning's greenhouses had a net income of 10,000 yuan. At the end of the year, with money in hand, Gan Ning began upgrading the vegetable varieties grown in the greenhouses, introducing new varieties such as broccoli and water spinach from other places. Because these vegetables are rich in "selenium," their prices were relatively higher than ordinary vegetables.

In 2016, one of Gan Ning's sheds could generate 20,000 yuan in income. Gan Ning supplied part of the "selenium-enriched vegetables" from the 19 greenhouses to 4 supermarkets in Ping'an District, and only a small remaining portion was sold to vegetable wholesale stores and the morning market.

On June 14, at the selenium-enriched fruit tree planting base in Shigouyan, Ping'an Town, Ping'an District, the picking of nectarines in the greenhouses had already ended. The current work was to prune the "old branches" that had previously borne fruit on the nectarine trees, so that in the second year they would grow new tender branches again. Gan Ning was pruning branches in her own greenhouse, and while pruning, she also guided the farmers hired to work in the shed on which branches should be pruned and which should be kept. Planting seedlings, mulching with film, watering, fertilizing... since starting her business in 2013, Gan Ning had been doing this seemingly simple yet cumbersome work in the 19 greenhouses she contracted. With her own hardworking hands, she interpreted the harvest that belonged to her.

"This year, my own fruit and vegetable cultivation can be considered mature, because what we grow is pollution-free, 'zero-additive' organic vegetables, so the demand for organic fertilizer is relatively large. Next, I plan to develop livestock farming and make full use of that organic fertilizer," Gan Ning told the reporter full of drive.

In June 2015, Xing Youzhi contracted 24 modern greenhouse sheds at the selenium-enriched base in Shenjia Village, Ping'an Town, Ping'an District. For university student entrepreneur Xing Youzhi, who had been growing fruits and vegetables in Xunhua since 2013, what she valued in contracting greenhouse sheds in Ping'an District this time was the "Ping'an selenium enrichment" with unlimited prospects. These days, Xing Youzhi was innovating channels to increase income from fruit and vegetable cultivation. By contracting the intelligent glass greenhouse in Zhangjiazhai, Ping'an Town, Ping'an District, she planned to turn it into a fruit and vegetable exhibition shed to develop tourism and leisure integrated sightseeing agriculture.

From enduring one difficulty after another at the beginning, with more than a dozen sheds running at a loss and generating no income at all, to now each shed earning 20,000 yuan, Li Zhanping, Gan Ning, Xing Youzhi... these university student entrepreneurs have proven to us through their respective entrepreneurial paths that "there will surely come a time to ride the wind and break the waves, and then hang the cloud sail to cross the vast sea."