Bao Wenhua Realizes Her Dream of Prosperity on the Yellow Earth
Young people love to dream, and 35-year-old Bao Wenhua of Lamadi Village, Wangyefu Town, Harqin Banner, is no exception. Her dream is greenhouses stretching across the hills and fields, plump fresh tomatoes, and neat and orderly exhibition halls... Sometimes when she is on a business trip sitting in a car, she also dozes off and slips into dreamland, because years of rushing about have made even a young heart feel tired. In the dreams of youth there is no intoxicating romance, but often an extraordinary sense of responsibility; on delicate shoulders there is not much to lean on, but often an extraordinary load to bear. Over the years, Bao Wenhua has never given up lightly, and step by step she has realized her "journey of chasing dreams," because she has the youthful dream of entrepreneurship.
Because she had a deep-rooted rural attachment to her hometown that was hard to let go of, in the year she graduated from junior high school, after careful consideration, she chose to return home to start a business and set out on the path of modern agricultural entrepreneurship. At the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey, she actively took part in her father's greenhouse planting, from which she saw her father's hardship, felt the difficulties of management, and also discovered that the traditional marketing model constantly restricted the development of the agricultural industry. Lamadi Village also had the conditions to develop cold-frame vegetable greenhouses, but the villagers' enthusiasm for building cold frames and growing vegetables was not high. Watching people in other villages make big money while her own villagers had no share, Bao Wenhua, who was then a member of the Lamadi Village Committee and director of the Women's Congress, was very anxious, and together with the village "two committees" team she was determined to make a great effort to guide and support the villagers in developing the greenhouse industry. They planned and designed an industrial development base and began doing work with the masses. As one of the members of the village "two committees" team, Bao Wenhua likewise went from door to door doing work with the villagers, guiding farmers to build greenhouses, but the masses all took a skeptical attitude toward this, saying: "You talk about how wonderful this is and how wonderful that is, so why haven't any of you built a single greenhouse?" These words left young Bao speechless, and she was deeply shaken inside. Bao Wenhua had heard plenty of news about the industrial base in the neighboring village making big money, and every time she heard it she was very envious. She truly hoped that her village would also quickly build a stretch of greenhouses, so that the villagers of her own village could also become prosperous through this industry. But if the members of the village team did not take action, there would be no persuasiveness, and the masses would only sit by and miss the opportunity, watching others make money while they got no share.
Show the masses by doing! Bao Wenhua made up her mind. Just do it. If there was no money, she would take out a loan and do it anyway. First, build the greenhouse on the base.
At that time, she rushed about in all directions, and with the support of the town and village levels, she successfully obtained a loan. In the vegetable industry base planned by the village, she invested more than 260,000 yuan and, by means such as renting land and exchanging land, took the lead in successfully building 17 mu of cold-frame vegetable greenhouses and planted firm-fruited tomatoes.
Afterward, doing work with the masses was much smoother. Driven by her example, more than 100 greenhouses were built in the village all at once, making it a newly emerging major village of protected agriculture in the whole town.
Relying on the support of the town's technical strength, plus the tireless labor and dedication of the growers, when the vegetables ripened, Lamadi Village's firm-fruited tomatoes had a bumper harvest, and prices climbed all the way up. All the industry households made big money, and young Bao became one of them. She not only recovered her investment, but also earned 2,000 yuan per mu. Not only did she have greenhouses, she also had money, and she successfully dug up the first bucket of gold in her life.
After Lamadi Village's vegetable industry broke through that stagnant pool, it was full of vitality. In just a few years, the village's vegetable greenhouse industry grew from the initial 100 mu to more than 1,500 mu today. The greenhouses she built herself became Wangyefu Town's foremost firm-fruited tomato industry development base. Once the industry was established, she also hired more than 10 workers. These people all had little land at home and no specialized skills, and they could earn about 20,000 yuan a year in the greenhouses, solving their worries about making a living.
Lamadi Village's specialized cooperative was also established, and Bao Wenhua became a core force in it. With her character of being decisive in handling matters and honest and trustworthy, she won the trust and respect of bosses from other places and of her fellow villagers. Years of tempering made her more rational and mature, and she became a vegetable broker of considerable influence locally. Every year during the vegetable marketing season, she would help bosses purchase vegetables. Not only did the bosses get fresh, pollution-free vegetables, but the growers also did not have to worry about not being able to sell their vegetables, and could sell them for a good price without leaving home. With her own intelligence, she kept Lamadi Village's vegetable trade standing at the forefront amid today's extremely fierce market competition, helping her fellow villagers achieve a double harvest of economic and social benefits, and winning widespread praise from society.
Nowadays, Lamadi Village's vegetable greenhouses have become an important source of the villagers' economic income. Each mu of greenhouse can bring farmers a stable income of 5,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan per year. Especially in 2015, the income from each greenhouse reached 30,000 yuan. While increasing income, it also gradually reduced the number of people from the village going out to work.
With a drive not to lag behind others and the courage to fight and strive, Bao Wenhua, this simple young farmer, has composed a glorious entrepreneurial journey with her diligent hands and sweat, realizing the dream of prosperity for herself and for her fellow villagers.