Planting Hope in the Vegetable and Fruit Fields: The Story of Huang Qiaoyin's Farming

On April 27, sunlight broke through the thick clouds that had lingered for days and spilled over Jieshang Village, Houchang Town, Weining County. More than 250 greenhouses covered with nylon film stood neatly in rows along the banks of the Sancha River, set against the fields on the shore to form a vivid, vibrant scene. Inside the greenhouses, rows of lush, promising watermelon vines wore small yellow flowers on their tips, while workers busily pollinated the blossoms, pinched buds and pruned vines to ensure the watermelons grew healthily for another bumper harvest this year.

Every year in May and June, the people of Houchang Town crave Huang Qiaoyin's watermelons. After a meal, with tea served and a melon cut open, the fresh fragrance fills the air and sweetness delights the heart. Everyone says her watermelons are delicious, but few know how much effort and sweat Huang Qiaoyin has poured into growing them.

Huang Qiaoyin, 42, is hardworking, enterprising and persevering. After working away from home for several years, she simply returned home and started growing watermelons herself. Gradually she became the town's major watermelon grower. Because she acts swiftly and decisively and treats people with honesty and goodwill, everyone elected her as the person in charge of the Minxin Breeding and Planting Cooperative, a role she has held for 6 years.

During this period, the cooperative has continued to expand its scale, developed local specialty planting, solved employment problems for many left-behind farmers, and led the people toward moderate prosperity and shared wealth. Huang Qiaoyin has also become a "woman of prosperity" embraced by the villagers.

This strong woman is not invulnerable. In mid-April this year, after a heavy rain and hail storm, Huang Qiaoyin did not sleep well all night, tossing and turning as she worried about the vegetables and fruits in the planting base. Hail as hard as stones pounded the roof, and each blow hurt Huang Qiaoyin's heart.

The next day, she rose very early and, without even washing up, rushed to the planting base. There she saw water flooding the strawberry greenhouses, and the cabbages left exposed had been smashed to a pulp by the hail. "Fortunately, the watermelons and cabbages were saved, especially the watermelons. This is the critical period for pollination and fruit setting. If last night's heavy rain and hail had destroyed them, this year would surely have brought no harvest at all." Huang Qiaoyin hurriedly inspected the damage in each greenhouse in detail.

Besides heavy rain and hail, the Sancha River flowing past the base is another major danger. Whenever the rainy season arrives around the Dragon Boat Festival, the Sancha River turns from

"quiet" to "violent." Once the water rises, the strawberry base, apple base, vegetable base and Huang Qiaoyin's watermelon base, all built along the riverbanks in Houchang Town, are completely flooded.

"In 2014 and last year alone, we lost several hundred thousand yuan because of this. Compared with my earlier experiences of working away from home and starting businesses, the most exhausting years have been these years running the cooperative. It is not just physical exhaustion; it is more mental exhaustion."

Huang Qiaoyin told the reporter that although she is tired, she will not give up. "Working hard now is not just for myself. So many people are following me and trust me. What is planted in this land is not only vegetables and fruits, but also hope."

Huang Qiaoyin's planting base adopts a "cooperative + farmers" model. Farmers join the cooperative with their land as shares and receive dividends at the end of the year, while in their slack farming season they can also work at the planting base to increase their income. Many farmers have thus prospered, built new houses and lived a moderately prosperous life.

In order to help farmers master planting skills, she hired technical personnel from Zhejiang at high pay to teach on site, and she also continued to enrich the base's varieties. In addition to the early-spring Hongyu watermelon, which has crisp, tender flesh and excellent flavor, the base has also successively introduced small muskmelon, yellow-fleshed melon and golden-thread melon and other melon varieties. They have become resources eagerly sought by vendors in many fruit wholesale markets within the province.

Under Huang Qiaoyin's leadership, in the 6 years since the Minxin Breeding and Planting Cooperative was founded, its annual output value has been about 1.5 million yuan. At present, it grows more than 140 mu of watermelons, which can be marketed in late May. Each mu yields about 6,000 jin of watermelons, and this year's income is expected to reach more than 1.6 million yuan.