The transformation and development path of the capable man Fu Zhongwen

These past two days, Fu Zhongwen of the Zhongzhai villagers' group in Jianpo Village, Xinchang Town, has been unusually busy. At dawn, he and his daughter and son-in-law were busy scooping honey, and they could only take a short rest at 4 in the afternoon.

From growing grain to planting pears, and then to raising bees for honey... In Jianpo Village, whenever Fu Zhongwen's name is mentioned, everyone cannot help but give a thumbs-up. This "capable man," as the villagers call him, is already 62 years old, yet he is still busy working to increase the income and prosperity of himself and his fellow villagers.

The story goes back to 1984, when Jianpo Village was selected as a pilot base for developing pear cultivation. Fu Zhongwen, then in his thirties, responded actively and took part, planting 27 mu of pear trees in one go, and actively learned cultivation and management techniques from experts at the agricultural science institute. A few years later, his pear orchard had a bumper harvest, with remarkable economic benefits.

Seeing Fu Zhongwen's success, those villagers who had taken a wait-and-see attitude or held doubts also took action and began growing pears along with Fu Zhongwen. In less than ten years, the area planted with pear trees in Jianpo Village reached 10,000 mu. Fu Zhongwen and the villagers thus got onto the fast track of escaping poverty and increasing income, and Jianpo pears also built up a brand and became widely known. Fu Zhongwen was also elected by the villagers as director of the village committee for two terms.

But the good times did not last. Because Jianpo Village's golden autumn pears and sugar pears had a single variety and yields could not keep up, pear prices began to decline, and the income Fu Zhongwen and the villagers earned from running pear orchards decreased year by year. Growing pears was no longer a long-term solution. How to transform became a difficult problem facing the villagers of Jianpo Village, and Fu Zhongwen once again became the "leader" of Jianpo Village's transformation.

In 2008, Fu Zhongwen accidentally discovered in Dalongtan, Xintianzhai, that a household was raising bees, so he took the initiative to strike up a conversation. He learned that beekeeping had low costs and considerable economic benefits, and the idea of keeping bees was born. But because he lacked breeding techniques, he did not really start doing it. However, the benefits of growing pears became worse and worse. Fu Zhongwen's 50 mu pear orchard could only bring in about 40,000 yuan a year, and after subtracting costs, there was simply not much money to be made. This made him determined to learn beekeeping.

In 2014, Fu Zhongwen found a beekeeper in Guxi Village and bought two boxes of bees for a trial. During the rearing process, Fu Zhongwen found that the mortality rate of bee pupae was high, and many pupae could not grow into adult bees. He realized that the breeding and management methods were wrong, so he asked around about bee farms around Guiyang. After several efforts by Fu Zhongwen, he finally learned the phone number of a bee farm, and he immediately sought out the owner of the farm to ask for advice. In addition to learning from a master, Fu Zhongwen also bought beekeeping books and DVDs to study. By learning while experimenting, Fu Zhongwen worked out his own new-style beekeeping method.

With the techniques, the mortality rate of Fu Zhongwen's bee pupae was greatly reduced. The original two boxes of bees had grown to 33 boxes in just two years. Moreover, his new-style beekeeping method can harvest honey 6 seasons a year, while ordinary beekeeping methods can only harvest honey two seasons a year, greatly increasing honey production. "Using the new-style beekeeping method, one box of bees can produce 50 jin of honey a year. My family's 33 boxes of bees are expected to bring in more than 60,000 yuan this year," Fu Zhongwen said happily.

In Fu Zhongwen's view, beekeeping is a good path to prosperity. "Beekeeping has low costs and high returns; you just need to know the breeding and management techniques. I want to first help some low-income households by teaching them beekeeping techniques free of charge, and lead them to raise bees together so that everyone can become prosperous together," Fu Zhongwen said.

Right now, Fu Zhongwen's only worry is the problem of selling the honey. "If sales channels are not open, the more people keep bees and the more honey is produced, the more there will be that cannot be sold once it is produced, and then the loss will outweigh the gain," Fu Zhongwen said.

In order to help Fu Zhongwen and more villagers get on the path to prosperity, Xinchang Town used e-commerce to provide a solution to the sales problem. At present, the Xinchang Town Agricultural Service Center has posted Fu Zhongwen's honey sales information on the Guizhou Agricultural Economic Information Network and the town's rural e-commerce platform "Tiantian Guoshu Hui." "We plan to apply for beekeeping to be designated as a targeted poverty alleviation project, and to mobilize and support some low-income villagers to learn beekeeping techniques from Fu Zhongwen, so as to increase income and become prosperous through beekeeping," said Wang Chaogang, director of the Xinchang Town Agricultural Service Center.