Hubei's Fang County spent 10 years and finally grew a fruit of prosperity
Fang Dong checking the growth of the olive trees.
10 years ago, he took a different path and planted olive trees. Not only did he become an olive tree expert, he also registered an agricultural development company, and from then on embarked on a golden road to prosperity. His goal is not only to grow olive trees, but also to expand into processing and produce Shiyan's own olive oil. He is Fang Dong, deputy general manager of Jilan Yuan (Hubei) Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.
A work unit restructuring led him to decide on a career change to growing olive trees
Fang Dong, 48 this year, is from Fang County and originally worked at a work unit in the urban area of Shiyan. In 2002, Fang Dong's mother went to the hospital because of high blood pressure. The doctor told Fang Dong that with this illness, his mother had best eat olive oil. Fang Dong grew up in the countryside and knew about sesame oil, peanut oil and rapeseed oil, but had never heard of olive oil. For his mother's health, Fang Dong asked around about where olive oil was sold. Later he heard that a shop on Liulin Road specialized in selling olive oil, 200 yuan per jin!
At the time, Fang Dong's monthly salary was only a little over 200 yuan. “What kind of oil is this? One jin actually costs as much as my monthly salary!” Fang Dong was astonished.
After Fang Dong's mother ate olive oil, her symptoms really did ease. From then on, Fang Dong began to pay attention to olive oil. Through newspapers and magazines, Fang Dong learned that olive oil is the oil pressed from the fruit of the olive tree, hailed in the West as “liquid gold,” with many benefits such as promoting blood circulation, improving digestive system function, beauty care, and preventing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is very popular in European and American countries.
In 2003 the work unit was restructured, and Fang Dong faced the question of what to do next. Having learned about the benefits and market value of olive oil, Fang Dong began to think about whether he could do something with olive trees.
The first thing Fang Dong considered was whether Shiyan was suitable for growing olive trees. He inquired and learned that our city had planted olive trees in the 1960s and 1970s, but they were abandoned because they did not produce considerable economic value, and some of those olive trees were hidden in the mountain forests unknown to anyone.
Fang Dong had never seen an olive tree. After learning that there was a leftover olive tree on Liuyan Mountain, he made a special trip to look for it, and in the end he really did find it. Fang Dong discovered that although this olive tree had gone through decades of wind and rain, it was full of vitality. People who understood the habits of olive trees told Fang Dong that in Shiyan, low mountain valleys below 600 m in altitude are relatively suitable for planting olive trees, and even in the most extreme weather, they usually will not freeze to death or die from drought. Fang Dong had also once gone to Yunyang District, where olive trees had been planted, to investigate, and found many olive trees that no one paid attention to still standing in the farmers' fields. Since they had been planted for decades and could still grow so well with no one tending them, that showed olive trees could be planted in Shiyan.
Starting in 2003, Fang Dong spent more than two years investigating and studying the olive tree project. After reaching a positive conclusion, Fang Dong decided to plant olive trees on a large scale.