Contracting beach land to grow fruits and vegetables, targeting the high-end market to boost returns

Five years ago, Qi Aifeng was just an ordinary rural woman. But over the past 5 years, her reputation and fame have steadily grown, earning praise not only from young and old throughout her own village, but also the admiration of young people in neighboring villages and townships.

In the 12th lunar month of 2004, Qi Aifeng and her husband Zhou Jianlin came home from out of town, where they ran a snack business, to spend the Spring Festival. When she saw the large stretch of abandoned stream beach land at the edge of the village, she felt it was a pity not to put it to good use. So she discussed it with her husband: she wanted to contract this stream beach land to grow fruit. Her husband was firmly opposed as soon as he heard it, saying: "Running a snack business is familiar ground, and it earns cash. Others try every possible way to get out and can't, yet we finally got out and now you want to come back. I'm against it!" But Qi Aifeng had set her mind on the goal. In the end, her husband could not overcome her persistence and reluctantly agreed to let her try first, and if it didn't work, to go back to their old trade. Qi Aifeng found a partner from the same village, and in 2005 contracted more than 40 mu of stream beach land. With the beach land contracted, what fruit would be good to grow? Qi Aifeng investigated markets through many channels and also visited the experimental base of Zhejiang University. Under the guidance of Professor Zhang Shiliang of the College of Agriculture at Zhejiang University, she chose to grow grapes, investing more than 400,000 yuan in succession to build a greenhouse planting base.

Qi Aifeng, who had only a junior high school education, from then on picked up books again and delved into American grape cultivation and management techniques. When she didn't understand something, she learned from peers and sought advice from Professor Zhang Shiliang, and every day she recorded her insights from the management process, constantly summing up practical experience.

After the first batch of grapes was successfully introduced, Qi Aifeng then set her sights on growing high-grade vegetables. In 2008, together with her younger brother, she contracted more than 10 mu of beach land and started waterless vegetable greenhouse cultivation. After more than a year of trials, the waterless vegetable base also showed clear economic returns. This year, Qi Aifeng contracted more than 40 mu of beach land for the 3rd time, built new steel-pipe greenhouses, introduced new grape varieties, expanded the grape planting base, and founded the Xianju Xinyu Breeding and Planting Professional Cooperative, implementing intercropping of grapes and vegetables and seeking returns through scale operation.