Making money by raising pigs and brewing liquor is a sound business, and a good path to increase income and get rich

Zhang Min is brewing liquor.

Every morning at six o'clock, Zhang Min, a villager from Group 5 of Yangmei Village, Yangmei Township, Shuicheng County, gets up on time, lights the fire, loads the vat, scoops water... and gets ready to start brewing. After the processes of selecting materials, steaming, saccharification, fermentation, sterilization, and distillation, the mellow corn liquor slowly flows out of the vat.

This farmhouse corn liquor brewed by the traditional rural method uses the locally abundant corn as its main raw material and clear, sweet mountain spring water, and is brewed into a liquor with a high alcohol content. When it is drunk and swallowed down, it gives a burning sensation, and it is an indispensable form of courtesy for farmers when entertaining guests.

On May 13, the reporter saw in Zhang Min's brewing workshop that her brewing workshop had no mechanical equipment at all, and all brewing procedures were done manually. Meeting Zhang Min for the first time, she was somewhat shy and not good at talking. But when it came to brewing liquor, she felt very proud: "My parents' family also brewed liquor. I learned to brew liquor when I was in my early teens."

Zhang Min told the reporter that according to the characteristics of the brewing process, generally one day is for steaming the grain and one day is for producing the liquor, and all the work is completed by her and her husband. Traditional brewing is physical labor and is also very hard, especially in summer, when the freshly steamed corn is steaming hot and the temperature is extremely high, making the whole workshop very stuffy and hot.

In 2006, with a head for business, she raised 20,000 yuan, bought 30 small piglets, and started breeding. Every day, the piglet feed consumed a large amount of the family's corn, potatoes, and other grain, which made the family, which was not well off to begin with, somewhat stretched. She thought of her skill in brewing liquor. Why not use the distillers' grains produced by brewing liquor, which could both solve the feed problem and provide another source of income? She put the idea into action right away. That year, she built a simple brewing workshop, and kept at it for 10 years.

"My liquor is never adulterated and has a pure taste. It is all acquaintances who come to the door to buy liquor, so I don't worry about sales." Zhang Min said while brewing liquor. "Every year I need 2,400 jin of corn, which can brew 1,000 jin of liquor, with an average price of about 4 yuan per jin."

Next to the brewing workshop is a simple pigpen shaped like the Chinese character "seven," built with cement bricks, and 20 sows are sleeping quietly in the pen. "The 20 sows gave birth to 130 piglets this year, and more than 70 were sold. There are still more than 50 in the pen now." Zhang Min said. "Last year the market for large pigs was good, so I raised large pigs. This year the market for small piglets is good, so I raise small pigs. I raise pigs according to the market."

Lei Minglin, deputy township head of Yangmei Township, who accompanied the reporter on the interview, said that Zhang Min is a "capable woman" who not only knows how to brew liquor, but also knows how to give injections to pigs.

Zhang Min said somewhat shyly that in the countryside in the past, whenever a pig got sick, it was hard to find a veterinarian. By the time a veterinarian was found to treat the pig, the illness had already become serious, and she had to spend a large sum on medical fees. In order to reduce expenses, she bought some books on pig breeding and disease prevention at a bookstore and taught herself to diagnose and treat pigs.

"In recent years, Zhang Min has never asked anyone to treat her pigs for illness. She always treats and injects the pigs herself." Lei Minglin said. All along, relevant officials in the township and village have cared greatly about Zhang Min's entrepreneurship and have repeatedly encouraged her to expand the scale of her breeding. In 2014, the village also helped her apply for a two-year government interest-subsidized loan to support her in expanding the scale of her breeding.

Raising pigs and brewing liquor set Zhang Min's family on the road to prosperity. Last year, her family earned more than 100,000 yuan from selling large pigs and more than 100,000 yuan from brewing liquor. This year, in brewing liquor and raising pigs, Zhang Min's family has again had a bumper year.