Jing'an Ponkan Goes International, and This Woman Deserves the Credit

Xiao Hua is an ordinary farm woman from the mountainous area of Jing'an. With a never-give-up drive, she grew from a genuine ponkan peddler into an entrepreneur today leading thousands of people to wealth. The Jing'an County Xihua Agricultural Products Professional Cooperative she founded has 108 shareholders, 3,510 members, 17 million yuan in fixed assets, and 17,000 mu of production bases. Its annual citrus sales volume reaches 16 million jin, annual sales revenue far exceeds 10 million yuan, and it has increased members' income by more than 3.1 million yuan. She has taken Jing'an ponkan beyond the province, opening more than 20 domestic markets including Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing and Guangdong; and taken Jing'an ponkan abroad, opening international markets including Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and Europe. A small woman has stepped into a big world and taken Jing'an ponkan to the international market.

Starting from Nothing, First Foray into the Market, Utterly Overwhelmed

Xiao Hua, now nearly 50 years old, was born in Hebei Village, Shuangxi Town, Jing'an County, in the beautiful mountainous area of northern Jiangxi. In 1995, because the enterprise she worked for was doing poorly, she resolutely resigned from her post as head of a township-run enterprise's vehicle fleet and began to venture into business. In August 1996, on a friend's introduction, she went alone to Hainan to open a clothing store but lost more than 30,000 yuan. Later, guided by a friend in Hunan, she began trying her hand at ponkan trading. But the ruthless market had no pity on a first-time wave-rider: the first 30 tons of ponkan she shipped hit a saturated market and could only be sold cheaply, losing her another more than 20,000 yuan. In the winter of 1998, two truckloads of ponkan sent to Heihe City, Heilongjiang, froze into blocks of ice because there was no heating equipment, and more than 60,000 yuan was lost completely. That money had come from emptying all the family's savings and secretly borrowing from relatives and friends behind her family's back. Xiao Hua truly had tears but no outlet for them.

Rallying Her Spirits, Trying the Market Again, a Small Taste of Sweetness

Her first foray into the market brought losses of more than 100,000 yuan, and being battered bloody by the ruthless business world pained Xiao Hua deeply. But Xiao Hua, this unyielding farm woman, did not yield to temporary setbacks. Instead, she dried her tears, summed up her experience, rallied her spirits, and tried the market again.

After painful reflection, she realized that not understanding market rules and selling blindly were the key reasons she had brewed bitter fruit for herself. So she began buying large numbers of books on marketing and studied day and night. To grasp market information from various places, when she could not raise startup capital, she gritted her teeth and sold the family's new motorcycle, and sold her jewelry, necklaces and some dowry. She bought a computer and insisted on searching online every day. After a period of study and thought, she made a bold decision: to spend some time conducting on-the-ground research on fruit markets across the country, to understand market conditions clearly and know both herself and the enemy. With her husband's support, relying on her never-give-up stubbornness, courage and wisdom, and on the information she had learned from books and the internet, she began her first long expedition. She once rushed continuously for more than 100 hours, from Heilongjiang to Hainan, conducting on-the-ground research on fruit markets from north to south. To save money, when hungry she gnawed on dried sweet potatoes she carried with her, and when sleepy she dozed in the vehicle. She persisted and traveled to all the well-known major fruit supermarkets and wholesale markets across the country.

Her hard work finally brought the first harvest. In 2000, through repeated comparative analysis, she set her sights on the nearby Jiangsu market with large demand. She resolutely mortgaged the family's building, took out a loan of 200,000 yuan, rented storage warehouses, uniformly packaged the fresh ponkan fruit she purchased, stored it by grade, and seized the Spring Festival peak season to push sales. That year, the first batch of 20 tons of ponkan earned a net profit of 15,000 yuan. Seeing her efforts turn into reality, she, who had never cried even in extreme difficulty, shed tears of excitement for the first time.

After several years of exploration, she accumulated some capital, broadened her horizons and gained wider experience. At this point, Xiao Hua keenly realized that to make the ponkan sales business big, relying only on a single trading model was far from enough; moreover, there was an extra wholesaler link in between, heavily discounting profits. In 2002, after discussing with her husband, she decisively invested 200,000 yuan, rented a storefront and cold storage in Suzhou, and set up her first sales point for long-term ponkan wholesale. That year she sold 1.5 million jin of ponkan. This first success strengthened her confidence even more. After nonstop investigations, she invested over a million yuan in succession and set up 4 sales points in Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing and Guangdong. Through the pull of these sales points, she established long-term supply-demand relationships with more than 60 customers, with a sales network covering more than 20 large and medium-sized cities domestically. In 2003 alone, she sold 5 million jin of ponkan.

Honest Business, Going Abroad, Welcoming Foreign Customers

Jing'an County is a famous hometown of Chinese ponkan, and Jing'an ponkan is known in the market for its large fruit, abundant juice, rich flavor, few residue, rich nutrition and storability. Farmers in 7 townships across the county all grow ponkan. A few years ago, ponkan output exceeded 100 million jin, but sales for such a large output were not very good. Fruit farmers habitually waited for peddlers to come buy, prices were low, always fluctuating between 1-2 yuan/kg, and sometimes farmers missed sales opportunities, resulting in low-price sales or even all the fruit rotting. How to expand sales and raise prices? By chance, sisters working away from home told Xiao Hua that Taiwan ponkan on the Hangzhou market in Zhejiang sold for 14 yuan per kg. While successfully opening domestic large and medium-sized city markets, Xiao Hua wondered whether Jing'an ponkan could enter the international market. At this point, she had an even bigger ideal. After repeated investigation and consultation, she learned that to sign contracts with foreign businessmen she should obtain ponkan export rights. So in 2004, she set about creating Jiangxi Xihua Import and Export Co., Ltd., becoming Jiangxi Province's first farmer fruit exporter. In 2005, she went to the Hong Kong government's capital accumulation office to apply to set up a company handling export business. It happened that Dutch boss Pan, who had studied in China, was also there handling matters. Boss Pan was in the ponkan wholesale business in Taiwan, and after learning about Jing'an County's ponkan, he offered to buy Jing'an ponkan at the high price of 2.8 yuan/jin, urgently needing 2.4 million jin. Considering insufficient stock, Xiao Hua did not dare agree rashly. Her accompanying assistant advised: "Don't worry, there's plenty of ponkan on the market. Just buy some and change the packaging." After hearing this, she sternly criticized him: "What they want is Jing'an ponkan. You want me to hang up a sheep's head and sell dog meat. Isn't that deliberately deceiving people?" In the end, she turned down this big deal. Many peers found it unbelievable, and some even laughed behind her back, saying she was foolish and unfit for business. But unexpectedly, the next year Boss Pan came to her on his own, saying he was willing to do business with such an honest person. This time, Boss Pan took the initiative to raise the price to 3.2 yuan/jin and signed a long-term supply agreement with her. Through Boss Pan's pull, she exported more than 2 million jin of ponkan each year, bringing ordinary mountain fruit into international markets such as the Netherlands, Vietnam and Singapore.

Establishing Bases  Founding a Cooperative  Driving Farmers to Get Rich Together

After more than ten years of struggling in business, Xiao Hua's pockets were fuller and her original dream had come true, but her wish to lead her fellow villagers to wealth had never been fulfilled. She often thought: I became rich by selling the ponkan my fellow villagers grow, yet my fellow villagers have not yet become rich. How can I repay my hometown? She began trying the "sales company + base + farmers" model among fruit farmers in Shuangxi Town, and formally set about organizing a ponkan economic cooperative. In 2006, with strong support from the county and township governments, the Jing'an County Xihua Agricultural Products Cooperative, with more than 100 fruit-farming households participating, was formally established. Through rules and bylaws, the cooperative established a board of directors, a board of supervisors and a series of systems including financial revenue and expenditure management, and carried out enterprise-style operations. It also uniformly provided fruit seedlings, uniformly provided technical guidance, uniformly managed, uniformly purchased, and uniformly graded, packaged and sold. That year, the cooperative sold 4 million jin of ponkan, achieving sales revenue of 4.5 million yuan. For member fruit farmers, the average production cost per mu dropped by 8%, output increased by 10%, and each jin of ponkan sold for 0.3 yuan more than for non-members. The stark contrast stimulated fruit farmers' enthusiasm to join, and more and more fruit farmers came to her door asking to join. She never turned anyone away. To existing members, whether from her own township or other townships, she treated everyone equally. Especially for members needing help, she always found ways to lend a helping hand and solve their difficulties. Member Shu Minqi was a fruit farmer from Shankou Village, Huhu Town. Due to lack of funds, his wish to contract a ponkan orchard and become rich had never come true. After learning of this, Xiao Hua lent him 50,000 yuan in cash without interest, helping him buy out the 30-year management rights to a 35-mu ponkan orchard in one go. In only two years, Shu Minqi paid off the loan. Now his family's annual net income is above 20,000 yuan. Member Tu Xiaoqing, a fruit farmer from Shima Village, Xiangtian Township, because he did not understand ponkan cultivation techniques, had 5 mu of ponkan at home that only grew shoots and bore no fruit, making him so angry he wanted to cut them down for firewood. After joining the cooperative, Xiao Hua actively made him a key target of her own assistance, often finding time despite being busy to come to his home, teaching him hand by hand how to fertilize, spray and prune, and guiding him to strengthen field management. Last year, Tu Xiaoqing's 5 mu of ponkan produced 38,000 jin of fresh fruit, with a net income of more than 10,000 yuan. Tasting sweetness for the first time, he was so happy that he praised her to everyone: "Join the cooperative, production has guidance, sales need no worry, income grows steadily. This is all thanks to warm-hearted Sister Xiao!"