Three highly educated new farmers become wheat field makers, realizing their dreams through a cooperative
Original title: Reporter's notebook: The newly arrived "wheat field makers" in the countryside
Wheat field makers (online illustration)
When the setting sun casts its last ray of light, the reddened horizon and the golden wheat fields turn the harvest-filled Central Plains into an oil painting that cannot be blended away, its heavy colors luscious and vivid. By the field ridge, gazing at the scene of the bountiful wheat harvest, 29-year-old Wang Lingguang's face was filled with happiness.
Venture capital, crowdfunding, IT... In people's impressions, "entrepreneurship" is always associated with these "high-end" terms, and entrepreneurs are always drinking coffee in modern office buildings, tapping away at computers. But in Henan, there is a group of young people just like Wang Lingguang. Highly educated and highly knowledgeable, they gave up life in the city and returned to the wheat fields to pick up big bowls of tea and open up a new world. They are the "wheat field makers."
In July 2010, Wang Lingguang, then a student at Henan Agricultural University, disregarded his family's opposition and transferred 200 mu of land in Yancheng District, Luohe City, established a modern high-yield agriculture demonstration base, set up a cooperative, and began rural entrepreneurship. "At the time, some people laughed at me for going home to farm while boasting about starting a business, but I firmly believed that farming is absolutely not just digging holes and planting crops. A new type of professional farmer with education, technical know-how, and business skills, who works the fields personally, is the most advanced productive force in future agriculture. The countryside is a new blue ocean for entrepreneurship," Wang Lingguang said.
Over the course of 6 years, under Wang Lingguang's leadership, the cooperative not only transferred more than 10,000 mu of land, but also formed a "one-stop" system of planting, processing, and sales production, as well as a "full chain" of high-yield agricultural science and technology research, application, and promotion. The "agricultural technology outsourcing" business model launched by Wang Lingguang achieved complementary advantages between agricultural technology and capital, making him an expert in large-scale agricultural planning, planting, and operational services.
"Wheat field makers" are not just a "new sight" in the wheat fields. Highly educated intellectuals who have education, technical know-how, and learn quickly have entered the wheat fields, truly injecting new vitality into agricultural production.
Tang Daoli, a female post-80s university graduate from Haozhai Town, Sheqi County, Henan Province, gave up a job at a foreign company with a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan and returned to her hometown to set up an agricultural cooperative. Haozhai Town's soil is poor, the soil layer is thin and cannot retain moisture, and irrigation is inconvenient, so farmers have long had to rely on the heavens for their harvest. To increase yields, Tang Daoli consulted experts and went elsewhere to study, introducing a wheat subsoiling no-till fertilization seeder and a series of conservation tillage techniques. Wheat yields nearly doubled, and in 2015 the per-mu yield reached 1,200 jin.
The "yellow-haired girl" outdid the "old hand" at farming. Bai Guoqing, an old farmer in his 60s, was thoroughly convinced in defeat. Tang Daoli said: "Agriculture has unlimited development potential, and every bit of progress in agriculture will bring a leap forward for society. Starting a business in the countryside comes with endless challenges and unlimited opportunities."
"I am not just a farmer, but also an agricultural businessman, a farmer with a business mind." This is He Sanjie's positioning of himself. In 2014, He Sanjie, a graduate of Huazhong Agricultural University, gave up a recommendation for graduate study and returned to his hometown of Xiayi, Henan, to contract more than 200 mu of land and become a farmer. During the two years of rural entrepreneurship, He Sanjie saw hope for agriculture and farmers. "I believe that in the near future, farmer will no longer be just an identity, but also an occupational identity, and the power gathered by this recognition will be the strongest driving force for agricultural development," He Sanjie said.
The university students who once fled the land have now become farmer CEOs returning to the land. In the Central Plains, agriculture has become a new blue ocean for entrepreneurship that more and more young people are passionate about, and the "wheat field makers" have also become a vital force invigorating the rural economy and solving the "three rural issues." "When I see stretch after stretch of wheat fields, I feel an indescribable excitement in my heart. As long as I work hard with all my heart, the land is my biggest stage," Wang Lingguang said. (Xinhua News Agency, Zhengzhou, June 6 dispatch, Xinhua reporter Song Xiaodong)