He abandoned engineering for farming and led the way to prosperity; the Golden Pigeon brand leads eastern Guangdong

Flashback

In 2010, Chen Weibo, who had been out of university for only one year, voluntarily gave up a high-paying position at a French-owned enterprise in Shenzhen and returned to Jigongqiao Village, Longtian Town, Xingning City, where he had spent his childhood, to take over his uncle's nearly failed meat pigeon farm, thus beginning a arduous entrepreneurial journey. In the first 3 years, starting from scratch, the meat pigeon farming scale grew from 3,000 pairs to 50,000 pairs, becoming the largest meat pigeon farm in eastern Guangdong. Then in 2013, the panic caused by the avian influenza outbreak left more than 100,000 meat pigeons unsold, causing heavy losses, and it took countless twists and turns to get through the crisis. After this newspaper reported on his entrepreneurial story in September last year, Chen Weibo has now established the Xingning Golden Pigeon brand, moved toward automated farming, and built a sales network across Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi that extends to all parts of the country.

Follow-up visit

At Chen Weibo's pigeon farming base, the reporter saw 27 pigeon sheds lined up in a row on the hill, while he moved among the rows of pigeon cages inside the sheds, carefully checking each pigeon's record sheet, instructing workers on feeding and asking about the pigeons' eating conditions. Seven years ago, Chen Weibo, who grew up in Shenzhen and studied in Guangzhou, had always been mindful of his uncle in his hometown who treated him like a son. To repay that family bond, he gave up a job at a foreign enterprise in Shenzhen with an annual salary of 100,000 yuan, and also gave up the engineering knowledge he had studied for four years, choosing to keep company with pigeons. As a new farmer, he was one of the "three nos" - no experience, no technology and no theoretical knowledge. Now, at thirty, he has become a leader who has helped thousands of farming households get rich by raising pigeons.

Chen Weibo first became an apprentice to an old master pigeon raiser in his hometown, learning while acting as a "nanny" to the first batch of 3,000 pairs of pigeons. "The first thing every day was to get up at six and feed the pigeons on an empty stomach, while I instead ended up with stomach problems." In the third year, through online courses, he became an undergraduate student in animal medicine at China Agricultural University, studying professional farming knowledge. "Each pigeon has a record tag, with the time of laying and hatching carefully registered, so they can be managed scientifically." That year, the pigeon farming scale expanded to more than 40,000 pairs, with annual sales of nearly 1 million meat pigeons.

In 2013, Chen Weibo, who was focused on expanding his meat pigeon farming base, was "forced onto Mount Liang" by a sudden avian influenza outbreak and began using the most primitive method to canvass the market, thereby building a sales network. When the outbreak occurred at the beginning of that year, his base had more than 50,000 pairs of pigeons, and if they could not be sold, he would directly lose more than 2 million yuan. For this reason, he could only open up nearby rural markets and sell at low prices, while borrowing 1 million yuan from relatives and friends to preserve breeding pigeons for propagation and ensure the next year's farming. "Every day was like fighting a battle. I got up after 4, ran to more than ten points a day, and sold pigeons at rural markets and street corners. I ran through hundreds of rural markets in Meizhou and even went to Jiangxi and Fujian. Once you give up, you lose everything, so there was no way out!" Throughout 2013, he reduced the pigeon farming scale by 30%-50%.

After this battle, Chen Weibo deeply realized the importance of integrating production and sales and building a brand. "I realized that no matter how large the base construction was, if I could not grasp market fluctuations in time and had no brand competitiveness, then once I encountered the same situation again, I would still be in a passive and dangerous position." In 2014, he invited a friend working at a certain large national family farm to serve as a technical consultant, and launched school-enterprise cooperation with Guangdong Vocational College of Science and Trade, introducing technical talent and so on. Now the company already has a 5-person technical team. "The current direction is to gradually shift toward automated farming and achieve integration of production and sales." Today, meat pigeon farming accounting for 10% of the stock has achieved automatic feeding and automatic drinking water, saving half the manpower; at the same time, more than 100,000 yuan was invested to build a cold storage, solving the problem of product storage. Chen Weibo said that in the first half of this year, he will also prepare to build a new 200-mu base capable of farming 100,000 pairs of meat pigeons, and the farming scale will expand threefold.

"I want to make the 'Xingning Golden Pigeon' brand famous and make the meat pigeon farming industry bigger and stronger." Chen Weibo is not just talking. Today his meat pigeon farm is the largest in eastern Guangdong, and also the only farm in eastern Guangdong that breeds from grandparent stock pigeons. At the same time, he registered and established Meizhou Jinlv Modern Agriculture Development Co., Ltd., using the "company + farmers" method to help nearly a thousand farmers in surrounding towns get rich together, establishing a sales network in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi, and beginning to extend to cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

Dialogue

Dealing with farmers

is a technical skill

Reporter: As a scholar, how do you deal with so many farmers and get them to follow you in group development?

Chen Weibo: I first achieved results with the meat pigeon farm so that everyone would be convinced. At first, I started from zero in pigeon farming techniques and theoretical knowledge, either self-studying or learning from a master. As the farming scale continued to expand, many farmers tasted the benefits after cooperating with me. Many of them originally only raised pigeons in their spare time to supplement household income, but after developing together with me in a group, using unified feed and a unified management model, pigeon farming became their main business. A family raising 3,000 pairs of meat pigeons can earn about 100,000 yuan a year under normal market conditions.

Actually, cooperating with farmers also involved a period of adjustment. They had raised pigeons for more than ten years and had formed fixed ways of thinking, making it hard for them to accept new farming and management methods. For example, each pigeon has a record tag and its egg-laying and hatching times must be carefully recorded, but many farmers thought at first that there was no need and always failed to record. I am rather impatient by nature, but they were also stubborn, and gradually I became more patient, reminding them again and again and nagging again and again, and then they slowly corrected themselves.

Reporter: After joining together with farmers, how do you guide and lead their development?

Chen Weibo: Learn from the "Wens model", that is, establish a commissioned production relationship with farmers. They bear certain production risks, but risks in technology, management and the market are borne by my company. This is the "company + farmers" model, which focuses on farmers' interests and forms a close interest relationship with them. I provide farmers with experience in technology and management, and we also purchase feed uniformly. Even when the market is sluggish, we purchase their meat pigeons uniformly. After sharing costs, distributors give profits back to the farmers. Therefore, dealing with farmers is also a technical skill. First, you must have leadership ability so that they believe in you; second, farmers must truly benefit and their enthusiasm for production must be mobilized.

Reporter: Did the 2013 avian influenza make you waver? Where does your determination to become bigger and stronger come from?

Chen Weibo: I think entrepreneurship itself involves both risk and opportunity, but I have always been full of confidence in myself. Back then, in order to sell more than 100,000 pigeons, all my relatives and friends helped me canvass the market, including my wife and the elders in my family. Their support moved me and also made me feel guilty. Moreover, there were also the hundreds of farming households who initially chose to trust me. I was the one leading them into the market, and some even gave up their original occupations to follow me in raising pigeons. I cannot let them down!

But after this hard battle, I accumulated experience in responding to emergencies. I share my experience in technology and management with farmers, because only in this way will farmers boldly follow you and further expand the farming scale. I am not afraid that someone will enter and compete with me for the market; on the contrary, I hope to help more farmers get rich together. Now I have also joined the provincial meat pigeon association and often exchange and share experience with other farmers. Only in this way can the industry truly be made bigger and stronger.