Gelan Town, Changshou District, Chongqing: The Layer Hen Industry Transforms and Upgrades
With the push of a button, the funnel-shaped feeder automatically slides back and forth, evenly scattering crushed corn and soybean into the feed troughs. Tens of thousands of layer hens poke their heads out of their cages, eagerly enjoying the "feast" before them. Recently, in Zones A5 and A11 of the Gelan Benchmark Chicken Farming Cooperative, the reporter saw the layer hens of large-scale chicken farmer Liang Bonian feeding happily.
Liang Bonian is a layer hen farmer in Nanzhong Village, Gelan Town. Before the Taohua River remediation, he raised 7,000 layer hens in the village. The manure from the chicken farm caused severe environmental pollution to the Taohua River and the surrounding area. After the Taohua River pollution remediation was carried out, he closed his chicken farm and rented two farming zones at the Benchmark Chicken Farming Cooperative, where he raised 55,000 layer hens.
Liang Bonian's "transformation" and upgrade is a microcosm of the upgrading of the layer hen farming industry in Gelan Town.
Gelan Town is a major livestock and poultry farming town in our district, with a year-round inventory of over one million layer hens and more than 40,000 head (birds) of other livestock. As a major livestock and poultry town, the people of Gelan are both proud and perplexed. Most farmers operate in a scattered manner, with relatively low management levels and risk resistance, and they incur losses whenever the egg market is sluggish. At the same time, serious environmental pollution problems have also affected the sustainable development of the industry.
In 2014, our district launched the battle against pollution in the Taohua River, with farming pollution as the number one target. A total of 165 farming households along the Taohua River in Gelan Town became remediation targets. Of these, 80 households met standards after treatment, 65 were shut down, 7 were relocated, and 12 switched to other production.
In the eyes of many people, the Taohua River pollution remediation was a heavy blow to Gelan's livestock and poultry farming industry. However, in the eyes of the Gelan Party Committee and government, this was precisely an excellent opportunity for transformational development. "The battle against Taohua River pollution is exactly a good opportunity for the 'transformation' and upgrading of our district's livestock and poultry farming," said Luo Fangquan, Secretary of the Town Party Committee.
Taking advantage of the Taohua River pollution remediation, Gelan explored an intensive farming approach. Zhang Qilin, Chairman of the Gelan People's Congress, said: "We must guide farmers to implement intensive and large-scale farming and strengthen themselves. Establishing cooperatives is a good path to intensive farming."
The Benchmark Chicken Farming Cooperative is the "benchmark" of Gelan's intensive farming. "We now have 600,000 layer hens in inventory, with an annual output value of over 100 million yuan!" Zuo Hongjie, head of the Gelan Town Benchmark Chicken Farming Professional Cooperative, told reporters that they joined forces to develop, established a cooperative, and adopted a standardized and intensive production path, achieving substantial growth in benefits.
Zuo Hongjie introduced that the cooperative not only implements unified epidemic prevention, feed, training, packaging, and sales, and adopts a model in which the company sells feed at low prices and farmers offset accounts with eggs, but more importantly, it allows eggs to appreciate in value. The cooperative spent 500,000 yuan to introduce this egg washing machine, which washes, waxes, and sorts eggs before packaging and sales. The eggs have a bright luster and uniform size, and with improved quality, their value naturally increases. At present, the cooperative has signed supply agreements with several food companies, supplying 5,000 kilograms of eggs daily at a price 0.4 yuan/kilogram higher than the market price.
After the cooperative's "five unifications" management, farmers' management costs for feed and disease prevention were reduced, and improved egg quality drove prices up. With profits to be made, farmers naturally expand their scale, which in turn increases feed usage and further drives the development of feed mills. In this way, both the companies and farmers in the cooperative benefit, forming a virtuous development path.
Liao Xiaomei was also one of the earlier farmers to join the cooperative. Before joining, she raised 8,000 layer hens, but benefits had long stagnated. After joining the cooperative, she expanded her farming scale to 40,000 hens. "Now I focus solely on raising the chickens well. Sales, epidemic prevention, pollution treatment, and so on are all handled by the cooperative. If the chickens are raised well, there is money to be made," Liao Xiaomei said. At present, more and more large-scale layer hen farmers are requesting to join the cooperative and take the path of large-scale, intensive farming.
Large-scale, intensive farming has brought new effects. At present, more than 600,000 layer hens in Gelan Town have achieved intensive production, and 75 large-scale farming households have been cultivated, with a scale rate exceeding 87.1%. Across Gelan Town's entire layer hen farming industry, feeding costs have been reduced by about 10%, egg quality has improved, farmers' risk resistance and profitability have increased, and farming pollution has been greatly reduced.
Gelan Town is transforming from a major layer hen industry town into a strong layer hen industry town.