Walnut Planting Leads Yan Zhiming of Puxian County onto the Road to Prosperity
A walnut paradise beyond the world, charming Baijiazhuang.
Heading west from Puxian county town, the terrain gradually rises. The car speeds along the winding and precipitous mountain road, taking in all the mountain scenery, which has a unique charm of its own.
Upon entering the territory of Shanzhong Township, the formerly winding road instantly becomes "straight and direct." On both sides of the road, walnut groves that can be found everywhere are lush and full of vitality.
There are more highlights. As the car enters Baijiazhuang Village, it resembles a city block plaza, with the compact and exquisite Baijiazhuang Leisure and Culture Plaza fully equipped with a fitness equipment area, a standard basketball court and other facilities; separated by a wall, the sound of reading aloud from the newly renovated Shanzhong Primary School campus is enchanting. Not far diagonally ahead, a six-story residential building equipped with broad and bright floor-to-ceiling windows - the Baijiazhuang Village Resettlement New Village - is undergoing interior finishing, and before long it will welcome 48 new households...
Surprises keep coming. As early as 2013, Baijiazhuang Village had already completed the laying of a tap water pipe network covering 10 km of the entire village and 2,600 m of sewage pipe network; in tandem, the village's sewage treatment plant and landfill were also put into use.
Over 10 years, Baijiazhuang's village appearance, soft environment and hard infrastructure have all undergone earth-shaking changes. Today, in the reporter's eyes, Baijiazhuang has clean and elegant streets and lanes, prominent industrial advantages, and a harmonious and livable life for the people. The reversal of Baijiazhuang's fate is by no means accidental; it all depends on village Party branch secretary Yan Zhiming's decades of commitment to the walnut industry and his unswerving, tenacious struggle.
Small Walnuts Dig Up Big Business Opportunities
Many years ago, some villages in Shanzhong Township, Puxian County already had the tradition of planting walnut trees, but the harvested walnuts were limited to giving away as gifts and personal use. Yan Zhiming initially worked at the supply and marketing cooperative. Once, a friend asked him to get some walnuts, so he brought two bags. Later, when the friend wanted to pay him, after repeated refusals Yan Zhiming symbolically accepted a little. It was this encounter that made Yan Zhiming keenly capture the huge business opportunity behind the tiny walnut. From then on, in his spare time after work, he would bring some walnuts to the city to peddle. From selling by the jin at first to selling by the bag later, sales gradually grew larger and larger.
In order to collect more walnuts and earn more money, and at the same time to lead his fellow villagers onto the road to prosperity, after several years of practice, Yan Zhiming found that selling only raw walnuts yielded too little profit, and the villagers' income growth was also very limited. After going out many times to investigate and study, he firmly decided to take the new path of processing and production. Through every possible effort, in 1998, his Puxian Zhengmao Walnut Comprehensive Processing Co., Ltd. was completed and put into production.
After the company was established, Yan Zhiming promised the villagers that he would purchase walnuts at prices higher than the market. But that year walnuts had a general bumper harvest and high yield, and the price after processing into finished products was not even as good as the purchase price. Yet Yan Zhiming did not go back on his word and settled all the villagers' walnut payments according to the agreement.
Sunshine always comes after wind and rain. After more than ten years of weathering storms in the market and struggling through hardships, and relying on Yan Zhiming's years of dedicated study and relentless pursuit of breakthroughs, Zhengmao Walnut Comprehensive Processing Co., Ltd. has now grown into a provincial key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization integrating walnut product research and development, production and processing, and sales and trade. The enterprise can process more than 2,000 tons of walnuts annually, producing 200 tons of refined walnut oil, 500 tons of premium original-flavor walnuts, 5 tons of walnut kernels, and 20,000 cans of multi-flavor walnut kernels. In 2015, the company's sales reached 36 million yuan and realized a profit of 5.4 million yuan. At present, the company has established cooperative sales networks in first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, with bright prospects.
Emphasis on Quality Wins Competitiveness
"The reason Zhengmao has been able to keep going through wind and rain all the way is its almost harsh pursuit of quality." Yan Zhiming told reporters that Puxian walnuts are of excellent quality and high nutrition, but the more so, the more one must not be careless about product quality or relax the consistent pursuit of high standards and strict thresholds for walnut quality. The honors that followed one after another are precisely the best reward for the concept of "quality first." Zhengmao walnut products have now become national pollution-free agricultural products and have passed the Ministry of Agriculture's certification.
The "Yangyi" brand series of walnut products launched by the company has also ranked among the nation's top 100 agricultural product brands, and Yangyi walnut oil even won the gold award at the Second China (Shanxi) Special Agricultural Products Trade Expo.
In order to develop larger areas of walnut planting and let the villagers obtain more economic income, in 2006 Yan Zhiming also presided over the establishment of the Xingnong Walnut Professional Cooperative. The cooperative mainly provides villagers with walnut planting technology and management techniques, while also guaranteeing purchase prices. The cooperative adopts the "cooperative + base + farmer households" business model, realizing a one-stop chain of "production, supply and sales." The cooperative has its own production bases for walnuts, millet and soybeans, and can sell more than 500,000 kg of walnuts, more than 25,000 kg of soybeans and more than 20,000 kg of millet annually, increasing farmers' income by more than 300,000 yuan each year. At present, the Xingnong Walnut Professional Cooperative has become the cooperative in Puxian County with the best development prospects, the highest driving benefits and the most members.
New "Role" Gives Back to Fellow Villagers
In the 2007 village "two committees" re-election, the villagers unanimously elected him as village Party branch secretary. Yan Zhiming did not disappoint the villagers' expectations. Since serving as village Party branch secretary, Yan Zhiming has raised more than 30 million yuan to build new village-level organizational activity rooms, a leisure and culture plaza, a clinic, a convenience chain store, a sewage treatment plant, a landfill and other infrastructure, greatly improving the living conditions of Baijiazhuang Village. Especially in 2014, he invested another 6 million yuan to start construction of a resettlement new village capable of housing 48 households, greatly improving the local people's living and production environment; he spent 1.38 million yuan to lay purple ceramic tiles on the roofs of 56 villagers' houses, solving the problem of roof leaks on rainy days in one stroke, while also achieving the effect of being warm in winter and cool in summer.
At the same time, he also led the villagers to vigorously develop planting and breeding industries and take the path of diversified development. To this day, four breeding demonstration bases for pigs, cattle, sheep and chickens covering 7,500 sq m have been completed, and in particular Shanzhong eggs have become the leading brand in the county's egg market. The breeding industry has become another important channel for increasing Baijiazhuang villagers' income. In 2015, the income of the whole village's villagers reached more than 9,100 yuan, 3.5 times what it was when he first became Party branch secretary.
"To make the Zhengmao walnut brand go nationwide and global is my lifelong dream." Yan Zhiming is full of confidence about the future. Next, he will continue to increase innovation and research and development efforts for the "Yangyi" product line, constantly launching more new signature products that are more welcomed by consumers and more competitive in the market. At the same time, he also hopes to let the villagers share more of the dividends from the enterprise's development and growth, so that the people's lives can be more prosperous and happy.