Female mechanical engineering graduate goes into the deep mountains to raise free-range chickens
Original headline: A white-collar worker becomes a "chicken keeper" and raises "phoenixes" in the deep mountains
Xiong Mengna's business card
Xiong Mengna, female, born in 1990, from Dingfeng Taoshuchong, Tongliang Village, Shigu Town, Xiangtan County. She graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Hunan Institute of Engineering and once worked as a brand sales supervisor at a shopping plaza in Xiangtan. After resigning, she returned to her hometown to start a business and founded a chicken farm - Xiangfeng Chicken Farming Professional Cooperative. She also developed a well-known local farm-stay brand, "Dingfeng Baoye Farmstead," mainly offering original ecologically mountain-range free-range chickens, Dingfeng specialty farm-stays, Dingfeng cured meat, and a high-mountain clear-water fishery, among other projects.
Story
On April 9, in Dingfeng Taoshuchong, Tongliang Village, Shigu Town, Xiangtan County, a fine drizzle was falling.
"Cluck, cluck, cluck..." At 10 a.m., among the foothills, chicken calls rose from all around. Several thousand blue-legged native chickens and Queshan chickens came rushing out of the woods toward their female owner. The owner's name is Xiong Mengna, a young woman born in the 1990s.
"The chickens I raise are completely original ecological. They eat insects on the mountain, as well as grain chaff grown by farmers at the foot of the mountain. Rain, dew and mountain springs are the flock's drinking water. Many people who have eaten the native chickens I raise say the meat is good and the taste is fresh," Xiong Mengna said.
After graduating from university, Xiong Mengna began selling leather goods at a shopping mall. Because of her outstanding performance, she was promoted to sales supervisor within just a few years and became what everyone regarded as a white-collar worker.
"At the time I was a bit tired of the nine-to-five life. I was young and always felt I could still do something more." After resigning, Xiong Mengna had the idea of returning to her hometown to start a business. But what exactly to do left her completely at a loss.
"Dingfeng has such a good environment, and more and more city people come to visit on holidays. Every time they come, they take back some native chickens, cured meat, vegetables and fish. Why don't you try running a farm-stay? It might be a way forward." Mo Congbi, Party branch secretary of Xingwang Village in Shigu Town, awakened Xiong Mengna.
At first, her family was not optimistic about Xiong Mengna's business plan. Xiong Mengna persisted again and again, patiently doing ideological work with her parents and younger brother, and finally in 2013 her "chicken-raising dream" began to become reality.
She raised more than 1 million yuan in funding, built 1.5 km of road, transferred mountain land from 11 households, using 1200 mu as a free-range base, built an 80 sq m brooding room, and put up 4 simple chicken sheds totaling more than 800 sq m. "Seeing the completed chicken sheds, and the chicks, I felt full of motivation."
Ideals are plump, but reality is bony. Xiong Mengna's path of raising chickens was not smooth sailing. "Many of the first batch of brooded chicks died. During those days I was really depressed."
In order to master chicken-raising techniques, she traveled alone to Hengyang, Xiangxiang and other places, humbly learning from local veteran breeders. With the help of the Xiangtan City Women's Federation, she also attended the "Targeted Poverty Alleviation, Women Moving Forward Together" rural women's SYB (Beijing) entrepreneurship training program. "With spiritual support and technical enlightenment, I have walked more and more smoothly on the entrepreneurial path, with more and more confidence."
At present, Xiong Mengna's chicken farm produces 75000 finished chickens annually, with annual income of more than 500000 yuan. In addition, she has expanded a high-mountain clear-water fishery, made traditional Dingfeng cured meat, and opened a farm-stay. Last year's output value already exceeded 1 million yuan.
"In the next 5 years, the cooperative will focus on building a rural tourism industry and establish a demonstration base for a new type of ecological leisure farmstead. If conditions permit, I also plan to use the internet to promote and sell my products." Xiong Mengna admitted that Dingfeng is remote, known as "Tibet in Xiangtan," and the roads are poor. After self-driving tourists reach the village entrance, they can only walk into the village, and the movement of goods in and out is often blocked. Even harder is that the network signal here is extremely weak, close to "paralyzed," and contact with the outside world is often lost, making it difficult to obtain all kinds of information in time.
"I believe these practical problems will be solved soon. Along the way, I thank the government, the Women's Federation, and the local villagers. They kept encouraging me to move forward, and I can only keep working hard. After all, this is my root," Xiong Mengna said. (Xiong Mengna photos/Liu Ye, Cao Hui, Jiang Rui, Zhao Yonghua)