Liu Feng's magnificent transformation from migrant worker to general manager
In the third month of spring, when this writer met Liu Feng, he was leading a group of shareholders in tending the orchard at the base. After this writer approached him and explained the purpose of the visit, he happily led everyone on a tour of his base.
Among the flowers, Liu Feng told the story of his transformation from a migrant worker into a general manager.
In November 1978, Liu Feng was born into a poor family in Yinchuan Village, Fengshan Township, Dafang County, and was the second of five siblings. In 1994, because of poverty and other reasons, Liu Feng, then only 16 years old, bid farewell to the school he loved and returned home to shoulder the burden of the whole family's livelihood together with his parents. Even so, Liu Feng's family still did not live comfortably.
"I remember one time, my mother took me to sell the bayberries she had picked on the mountain, and after a whole day at the market she had not sold a single one for even a cent. On the way home, my mother dumped the bayberries into a ditch by the roadside, and the moment she turned her head away, her eyes were full of helpless tears." Liu Feng recalled that from then on, sparing his mother some of those tears became his greatest wish.
Yinchuan Village is located in the southwest of Fengshan Township, Dafang County, and has a typical karst landscape. Because of constraints from various factors, its economic and social development stagnated. For this reason, many villagers in Yinchuan Village had the idea of going out to make their way in the world from an early age.
In the mid-1990s, under his father's lead, Liu Feng boarded a train bound for Heilongjiang and became a true migrant worker. "The first time I left home, I stood for 3 days and 3 nights on the train from Guiyang before reaching the transfer station in Beijing. When I got off the train, my feet were so swollen I could not even walk." Liu Feng said.
"At that time I was working in a brick kiln. Every day I started work before dawn, and by evening all my fingers were covered in blood blisters worn by the red bricks. That kind of hardship can only be understood by those who have lived through it; that feeling truly cannot be described in words." As he spoke, Liu Feng looked very sad.
Liu Feng's life as a migrant worker lasted 18 years.
Many years passed, and Liu Feng himself underwent a qualitative change. What did not change was his original intention to seek development for the people of his hometown. He decided to use his savings from many years to return home and develop there, leading the local people to prosperity together.
After relevant leaders of the Dafang County Party Committee and County Government learned of Liu Feng's idea, the county Party committee and county government gave strong support and assistance, and in April 2015 guided Liu Feng to establish "Guizhou Fengmei Fruit Industry Trading Co., Ltd." Liu Feng invested 400,000 yuan and transferred land to build the Guifeng Pear Orchard.
Today, Liu Feng is one of the well-known managers in Dafang. "The more than 20,000 pear trees in the orchard have already entered the fruiting stage, and it is expected that in 3 years they will enter the full-fruiting stage. By then, calculating at 20 kg of fruit per pear tree, the annual output value can reach more than 1.6 million yuan. Although the pressure is still very great at present, it is much better than working away from home." Liu Feng said with a chuckle.
On the road of seeking progress while being prosperous, Liu Feng has never forgotten the fellow villagers of his hometown. He decided to adopt the "company + farmers" development model and has successively absorbed 350 people into the company's development. Under his leadership, villagers became shareholders by contributing land as shares.
"By contributing land as shares, with the land transfer fee and labor fees of no less than 100 yuan per day, plus the year-end dividends, when this account is added up, one can earn more than 30,000 yuan a year." Villager Peng Lizhong said happily.
From a migrant worker who first worked out of sheer necessity to survive, he has become a general manager with an annual output value of more than 1.6 million yuan. When Liu Feng recalls the bittersweet experiences along the way, it is not only a deep memory of hard entrepreneurship, but even more, an understanding of what he has gained after his efforts.
"For more than 20 years, my experience of escaping poverty and becoming prosperous has been closely tied to the care and help of the Dafang County Party Committee and County Government." Liu Feng added: "Next, I still need to find ways to establish several more specialized planting cooperatives and lead more people out of poverty to prosperity."