On the road to prosperity through pig farming, Wan'an's Yang Tangwen never loses faith in entrepreneurship and keeps moving forward
A pig farm of more than 1000 sq m, more than 120 sows, more than 3000 pigs marketed each year, and more than 70 mu of orchard... In Tianxi Village, Shaokou Township, Wan'an County, 43-year-old Yang Tangwen is something of a celebrity. Everyone says that for a disabled person to have built the pig farm up to its current scale is truly commendable.
Disabled and Facing Discrimination
When Yang Tangwen was 3 years old, he became disabled in his right foot after contracting polio. Although the family was poor, when he reached school age his parents still sent him to school, hoping he could, like other normal people, finish primary school, middle school and high school, then go to university and find a stable job after graduation.
At that time, a physically disabled child often suffered discrimination and mockery from classmates during his school years. Yang Tangwen often saw classmates pointing and whispering behind his back, and some even directly taunted him with "you useless cripple." Yang Tangwen could not bear this humiliation and dropped out before finishing the second year of middle school.
Because the family was poor, after dropping out of school he tried every way to help ease the family's burden, selling popsicles, digging for rice field eels and catching loaches, then exchanging them for some grain, oil and salt.
Strong-Willed and Starting a Business Through Hardship
On the road of life, although Yang Tangwen walked with great hardship, he never lost confidence in the future. He always believed that he too could, like a normal person, create his own place in the world through hardworking hands.
Yang Tangwen's first job was helping pig dealers make introductions, earning 2 yuan for each pig introduced. Over several years, he learned how to slaughter pigs, so he began working as a butcher, and he did that for more than 10 years. In 2007, many local pigs died from blue ear disease, and pig farms large and small suffered heavy losses. In 2008, just when most people had lost confidence in raising pigs again, Yang Tangwen instead began his path of pig farming.
"How can a disabled person raise pigs? Besides, you have no pig-raising skills." Yang Tangwen's idea met with his wife's opposition. "I have spent half my life dealing with pigs, and I still know something about their habits. For me, raising pigs is more reliable than doing other things." Yang Tangwen set his mind firmly on the path of pig breeding. Before long, he took out all his savings and, together with his wife, built several simple pig pens on the family's hill plot.
Because he had never raised pigs before, Yang Tangwen started everything from zero. To learn pig-raising experience, he bought books and began teaching himself, and he stayed in the pig houses with the technical staff hired by the farm to observe the pigs' growth. Through humble learning, he gradually mastered professional pig-raising knowledge such as feed formulation and disease prevention. In addition, Yang Tangwen actively took part in training organized by the county and township and invited experts to his breeding farm to pass on techniques. Very quickly, Yang Tangwen learned to prepare medicine and give injections to pigs, turning from a layman into a skilled pig raiser. All 365 days a year, Yang Tangwen and his wife ate at the pig farm and lived at the pig farm, with no holidays and no rest even during the New Year.
The hardship Yang Tangwen endured is hard for ordinary people to imagine. In the first two years after starting out, because the market was not very good and he had no experience in pig farming, two consecutive years of losses left him with no confidence at all, and several times he woke up in the middle of the night and cried bitterly in his wife's arms.
Getting Rich by Raising Pigs and Providing Jobs
After several years of development, Yang Tangwen's pig farm buildings reached 19, including gestation pens, nursery pens, semen storage rooms and semen collection rooms... The pig farm buildings reached standardized construction. At the same time, every pig pen has automated feeding and watering equipment. Today, he markets 3000 pigs a year. At the same time, he has also contracted more than 70 mu of barren hills to plant fruit trees such as Nanfeng mandarin oranges and Jinggang pomelos. The annual sales of the pig farm and orchard reach more than 5 million yuan.
The author noticed that the pig farm was swept very clean, with no smell of stench. Yang Tangwen explained that all the pig manure from the farm was treated through biogas processing, and the biogas produced was also supplied to several nearby villagers as fuel.
"The pig farm has provided employment for more than 10 local disabled people," Yang Tangwen told the author. Liu Yanfeng, 46 this year, cannot do heavy work because of disability, and his family is very poor. Last year, after learning of Liu Yanfeng's situation, Yang Tangwen invited him to help at the breeding farm, doing work within his ability, and paid him 80 yuan a day.
"Since the second half of last year, pig prices have begun to rebound. Next, I will expand several more pig farms and make the scale bigger. While increasing my own income, I will also provide jobs for more disabled people and give back to society," Yang Tangwen said full of confidence.