Watermelon King Wang Mingli's Road to Wealth in Nanwangdian
Nanwangdian Town is a well-known "hometown of watermelons" in Heze. Nanwangdian watermelons are a "pollution-free watermelon" product certified by the Ministry of Agriculture of China, with a planting area of over 15,000 mu and an annual output value of 130 million yuan. Behind these honors and figures lies the silent dedication of large-scale watermelon growers, and the "Watermelon King" of Wanglou Village in Nanwangdian, Wang Mingli, is one of them.
Wanglou Village is a specialized watermelon village. When villagers mention the village's "Watermelon King" Wang Mingli, they all give a thumbs-up. "Wang Mingli is very sharp-minded, daring to take risks and act, bold yet meticulous. He has good character too, honest and sincere. He contracted land in Liuqiao to grow watermelons, and the nearby villagers are all happy to work in his melon greenhouses - good wages, flexible working hours, and he never delays payment. I heard he has now established the Youcheng Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative, and his watermelon planting scale is really getting bigger and bigger." said 46-year-old Wang Guoqing from the east end of the village with emotion. I went to visit his Youcheng Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative. Before even entering the cooperative, I could see arched plastic greenhouses from afar, stretching in a continuous expanse as far as the eye could see.
Rainbow After the Storm
As the saying goes, diligence brings an early spring. I walked into the watermelon greenhouse and saw Wang Mingli directing workers to prune the melon vines. With nearly 20 years of watermelon growing experience, Wang Mingli treats watermelons like his own children. He checks the watermelon growth every day - when to ventilate, when to prune, when to water, when to pollinate - he knows it all clearly.
"In the spring of 2011, around 4 p.m., a strong wind suddenly struck, blowing away quite a few of the straw mats and plastic film covering the greenhouses, causing losses of over 30,000 yuan. Mingli held pliers in one hand and steel wire in the other, leading workers to secure the greenhouses, working for hours on end. Past midnight, the sound of a car starting by the roadside woke Mingli up. 'Oh no, the wind is picking up again... I need to get up and check the greenhouses.' Tears of anxiety welled up in Mingli's eyes. He threw on his coat and ran outside. Just as he ran out the door, he only saw a car driving past. Other than that, all was calm - it was a false alarm..." Wang Mingli's business partner Du Liangyu vividly told me. "In Mingli's view, all difficulties are temporary. Such a small setback won't dampen his enthusiasm for growing watermelons at all."
Nanwangdian watermelons are sweet, crisp, and thin-skinned, deeply loved by consumers. They have not only captured Heze's early spring fruit market, but many customers from Lanzhou, Shanghai, and Xuzhou also come attracted by their reputation. "In another ten days or so, the small-scale watermelon growers from around here will also bring their watermelons to me. That empty lot over there will be packed with trucks coming to load watermelons. Last year, a department store from Yuncheng came here and hauled away four truckloads of watermelons, close to 4,000 tons, and they sold out in just one day - supply simply couldn't meet demand, haha..." Wang Mingli pointed to the empty lot outside the greenhouses.
Riding the Tailwind of Policy, Paving the Road to Development
In 1997, Wang Mingli trial-planted watermelons on his family's 5.5 mu of contracted farmland. That year's net income doubled compared to the previous year. Having tasted the sweetness of growing watermelons, he became firmly convinced about contracting land to grow watermelons afterward. When asked about transferring land to expand his watermelon planting scale, Wang Mingli opened up: "In 2014, by a chance opportunity, I saw on the news that the state encourages land transfer, advocates moderate-scale operations, and supports establishing rural professional cooperatives. I was overjoyed. After surveying the surrounding villages, I found that Liuqiao Village had many migrant workers and fewer young and middle-aged people in the village, and the villagers had a relatively strong desire to transfer their land. So that year I transferred 70 mu of land in Liuqiao Village and built watermelon greenhouses. In 2015, I added another 60 mu. In this way, Wang Mingli built 21 watermelon greenhouses on the 130 mu of transferred land.
"Our watermelons are of very high quality. In order to build our brand and attract more merchants, in August 2015 I registered and established the Dingtao County Youcheng Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative. This year I plan to continue transferring 45 mu to the east, which would bring it to nearly 200 mu. Calculating at a yield of 4 tons per mu, that's about 800 tons of watermelons. The current market price is 3.5 yuan per jin, so the income from 200 mu of watermelons would be 5.6 million yuan!"
Reverse Contracting to Help Impoverished Households Prosper
Wang Mingli built the contracted land into watermelon greenhouses, then subcontracted the greenhouses back to farming households, with each household responsible for one greenhouse. This not only ensures unified management, saving manpower, material resources, and financial resources, but also leverages the advantages of production contracted to each household, with intensive cultivation greatly increasing watermelon yields.
Liu Shaorong, 54 years old, has a husband with cervical vertebra displacement who has no ability to work, and three daughters, one of whom is still unmarried. The entire family burden falls on Liu Shaorong alone. "I used to go out to work with the village women to earn money to supplement the household income. Now my husband is sick and can't do farm work, and I have to take care of him, so there's no way for me to go out to work anymore. Our source of income was directly cut off. When I heard that Wang Mingli, the large-scale watermelon grower from Wanglou, was going to contract land to grow watermelons, with annual rent of 1,000 jin of wheat per mu, and that cooperative workers would be hired with priority at a monthly wage of 1,800 yuan, and that I could learn watermelon planting and management techniques for free, I came right over. Working right at my doorstep, I can take care of my family and earn money at the same time - the best of both worlds, haha..." Liu Shaorong told me joyfully.
Full of Vision for the Cooperative's Development
Regarding the cooperative's future development, Wang Mingli's heart is full of vision. Looking at the watermelon greenhouses in the distance, he smiled honestly and said: "Watermelons here are no longer just a specialty industry - they have become a symbol and a culture of Nanwangdian. More and more city people are willing to come to the melon fields during holidays and weekends to personally experience the joy of picking melons, and to feel and recall that unique rural charm. In order to better utilize this intangible resource of influence and seek new development, I plan to develop ecological sightseeing agriculture. Next year I plan to explore letting city residents come and plant green vegetables - dividing the land into plots and renting them out, with us responsible for daily management, and they can bring their children to plant vegetables on weekends. This way, we can attract urban and rural tourists to the park for leisure vacations, savoring rural farming culture and the natural pristine ecological environment."