Retired Department-Level Official Returns to Village to Grow Citrus, Setting an Example for Young People Returning Home to Start Businesses

Giving Up Officialdom to Return to the Village and Grow Citrus, Setting an Example for Young People Going Back Home

His skin tanned dark, thick myopia glasses perched on the bridge of his nose -- these two somewhat incongruous features appear together on Fan Jingchao. The villagers of Fanrong Village, Jiyi Township, Jingyan County, Sichuan, all call this rather strange farmer "Official Fan."

Before returning to the village to become a farmer, Fan Jingchao's name had been preceded by many titles.

He left the countryside at 21, spent nearly 40 years in politics, and rose to the department level, yet he made a decision that everyone found puzzling or even opposed: giving up the post of director of the Provincial Government Counselors' Office arranged by the organization and returning alone to his hometown, Fanrong Village. This 60-year-old veteran cadre wanted to "do one big thing" -- grow citrus.

After eight years of hard work, under Fan Jingchao's leadership the local citrus orchards have spread across 19 administrative villages in 4 townships including Jiyi and Yanjing, covering an area of 10,100 mu, with fruit-bearing orchards yielding an average income of about 10,000 yuan per mu. But what makes him proudest is that "the villagers finally believe in me!"

Returning Home to Be a Farmer

The idea of giving up officialdom to return to the village and become a farmer had been brewing in Fan Jingchao's mind for more than just a few days.

Fan Jingchao, who once held posts in the Sichuan Provincial Department of Agriculture, the Provincial Department of Water Resources, and the Provincial Government Disaster Relief Office, had almost always dealt with "agriculture, rural areas and farmers." He visited more than 210 county-level grassroots areas, and also traveled to Japan, Israel, the United States and many other countries to study modern agricultural development, writing numerous research papers on how to develop agriculture.

Compared with what he saw on his research trips elsewhere, the scenes he saw on his annual visits home made Fan Jingchao feel heartbroken. "Back then the village roads were unpaved, and on rainy days the mud came up over your ankles. All the labor force had gone out to work, the fields were left barren, and there were empty houses and barren hills everywhere. I felt the gap between my hometown and the outside world was growing wider and wider."

As early as the beginning of 2007, Fan Jingchao had already made preparations to return to his hometown after retirement to pursue modern agriculture, and had his older sister in the village make some initial attempts -- raising ducks, rabbits and fish -- but the results were not very satisfactory.

A research trip to Renshou County, Sichuan, the same year opened Fan Jingchao's eyes. There he discovered a "skilled entrepreneur" named Xu Wenke, and under this capable person's leadership, the local planting area of a hybrid citrus variety called "Qingjian" had expanded to nearly 10,000 mu, with an output value of more than 10,000 yuan per mu, even exported to Vietnam, Singapore and other countries.

"The story of Xu Wenke leading his fellow villagers to develop modern fruit farming provided me with a real-life success case." His exchanges with Xu Wenke made Fan Jingchao eager to try. "The climate, terrain, soil and other conditions of our hometown are very similar to those of Renshou County. Why not give it a try?"

At the time, the organization was planning to arrange for him to take up the post of director of the Provincial Counselors' Office to continue contributing his remaining years. "But I wanted to return to the village to be a farmer." Fan Jingchao resolutely declined the organizational arrangement, and after several rounds of communication finally gained understanding.

In 2008, this "department-level official" got his wish and returned home.

Facing Heavy Doubts and Feeling Wronged

This veteran cadre, who had not done farm work for many years, went back alone.

"At the time my family all opposed it." During his political career, Fan Jingchao had been frequently transferred between regions and had spent little time with his family. "After retirement, instead of resting and enjoying a good old age, he insisted on running off to the countryside. What for?" "If you go back alone, even your basic living conditions in the village won't be guaranteed." His family strongly opposed it.

For Fan Jingchao, who had no experience whatsoever in citrus cultivation, the resistance to returning home did not stop there. "You were doing perfectly well as an official, and you're willing to come back and be a farmer, and you say you're here to help the poor? You must be lying, right?" The villagers did not understand Fan Jingchao's move to return to the village and organize citrus planting.

Land transfer was the first unavoidable issue in building the orchards. Because planting required access to transportation, main industrial roads and water storage ponds, some fields would be paved over, which drew resistance from some villagers, and some even said, "You're ruining our feng shui by doing this."

"At the time, many people in the village thought that if a 60-year-old man messed things up after two years, what would happen to our money and our land? Everyone had concerns," said Liu Mingzhen, Fan Jingchao's neighbor.

Faced with doubts, Fan Jingchao went door to door to communicate with the villagers, constantly explaining the benefits of building the orchards: they could collect land rent every year without any worry, there would be jobs right at their doorstep, and the village conditions would improve. Only then did he finally gain widespread support.

As for the road construction, from planning and directing to coordinating the building work, Fan Jingchao handled it all himself.

Seeing the roads gradually completed and the orchards taking shape, Fan Jingchao brought in 18 skilled workers from elsewhere who knew about planting. From then on he began a life of getting up at 5 a.m. every day to cook for the workers. "With no natural gas, we could only burn firewood. I'd add firewood under the stove with one hand while quickly stirring the pot with the other." After finishing the housework, he would plunge into the orchards together with the workers.

Since starting the business, Fan Jingchao's habit of "walking at least 10 kilometers in the orchards every day to solve problems everywhere" has continued to this day. "At first there were only 505 'Qingjian' trees, and now the citrus orchard area has reached 10,100 mu. We plan to add about 6,000 mu more in 2016, reaching 16,000 mu." Pointing to the slogan in his office -- "A ten-year development blueprint, a hundred-village action to revitalize industry, a thousand hills transformed into orchards, ten thousand people enriched to build new villages" -- Fan Jingchao excitedly told the reporter.

The villagers feel this change deeply. "In the past, the hills in the village basically looked 'green from afar, but hopeless up close,' with barren fields everywhere," said 84-year-old villager Zhang Anchang. Today, on the road from Chengdu along National Highway 213 to Jingyan County town, the huge "Citrus Dream Garden" sign catches the eye, and following the sign all the way in, the fruit trees are laden with golden citrus wrapped in paper film.

After Fan Jingchao's story of returning home to grow citrus was first reported by the media, while he received much praise, there also appeared quite a few doubts -- "How did you get the funding for your project?" "He must have been a corrupt official while in office."

Hearing these accusations, Fan Jingchao felt very wronged. "The initial funding of more than 100,000 yuan was my savings. When the orchard expanded to 100 mu, I scraped together several hundred thousand yuan from relatives and friends." When the orchard expanded to 600 mu, Fan Jingchao again persuaded his family to sell the house in Chengdu and his father's house in Leshan.

"This made family relations even more strained." Fan Jingchao's wife could only move in with their daughter's family, and only moved to the village to live with him after retiring in 2015. "She felt that because of these reports, what I was doing had become a thankless task -- I suffered hardship yet somehow inexplicably brought disgrace on myself," Fan Jingchao said with a wry smile.

Encouraging More Young People to Return Home and Start Businesses

In 1969, Fan Jingchao graduated from high school and left the village, becoming a privately run teacher, later transferring to a public school teacher, then working at a broadcasting station, and after that embarking on an official career, rising from the section level to the division level and finally to the department level. Although his move of "finally getting out of the village only to come back" puzzled others, to him it was a very natural thing.

Fan Jingchao mentioned the Red Flag Canal to the reporter more than once. He had always regarded Yang Gui, who led the whole county to build the Red Flag Canal over 10 years, as his idol. "His sense of responsibility was truly remarkable," Fan Jingchao said. "Having worked for many years, every time I went home I deeply felt how backward my hometown was. If I couldn't use my own abilities to change my hometown's appearance through exploring modern agriculture, that would be too much of a pity."

Talking about the local development model, his thinking was clear: "Two-thirds of Sichuan people live in hilly areas, and hilly areas have many people but few resources. In today's countryside, the scope is broad and the volume is large, and there are commonly '3 major problems': traditional planting has low returns and cannot retain young people; the rural labor force is aging day by day; and more and more land is left barren. My hometown is representative in all 3 of these aspects. The way to solve these problems is modern agriculture."

Having returned home for more than 8 years, Fan Jingchao spends more than 300 days a year in the countryside. To help the villagers get rich together, in 2011 he initiated the establishment of a hybrid citrus professional cooperative. Based on the concept of "development by the proprietor, services by the specialized cooperative organization, and farmers getting rich through planting and management," the villagers contribute their land as shares and receive rent regardless of drought or flood.