Returning home to grow peppers, she gave up a 150,000-yuan salary to become a leader in mountain village prosperity

Zhang Xuelian gave up a job in Guangzhou with a 150,000-yuan salary to return to her hometown and grow peppers.

Luogang Town is a mountainous town in the north of Xingning, about 45 km from the Xingning urban area. From Luogang town center, one must travel another 15 km along a winding mountain road to reach Yuanqing Village deep in the mountains. The fresh air, terraced fields and beautiful scenery surrounded by mountains are enchanting. Zhang Xuelian stands in the vast fields, bends down to lift the plastic film covering the fields, and picks up a handful of soil to examine it.

This is the third year since Zhang Xuelian returned to her hometown to cultivate wasteland and start a business. In January 2014, Zhang Xuelian gave up a job with a 150,000-yuan salary, let go of a comfortable life with a house and a car, ignored the puzzled looks of others, and returned to her hometown to reclaim wasteland, becoming a new farmer.

The "phoenix" who flew out of the deep mountains returns home

"The weather warmed up relatively late this year. Last year we started sowing during the first month of the lunar year, but this year we still have to wait for the weather to warm up a bit more before the pepper seeds can survive easily." Her neat short hair highlights Zhang Xuelian's capability, and the glasses on the bridge of her nose give off a scholarly air. If not for her slightly dark skin, it would be impossible to connect her with a farmer. Zhang Xuelian calls young people who, like her, returned to rural areas to start businesses with technology after graduating from university "new farmers." "We need to change the old impression that farmers only know how to grow grain and sell grain."

Growing up in a mountain gully, Zhang Xuelian had aspired since childhood to leave the almost isolated deep mountains through education. When she was 12, her father passed away from illness and left behind more than 20,000 yuan in debt, so Zhang Xuelian's mother had to leave her and her brother in the village and go out to work alone. Her uneducated mother worked as a cleaner in a factory, and her monthly wage of 500 yuan could not cover food for a family of three. Zhang Xuelian and her brother long relied on the help of relatives and neighbors. "From then on, I had the desire to lead the villagers out of poverty and toward prosperity."

Although the village's teaching conditions were poor, the diligent, eager and determined Zhang Xuelian still achieved her ideal score through her own efforts. Considering her family's financial difficulties, Zhang Xuelian deliberately chose the agriculture major with the cheapest tuition.

After graduating from the College of Agriculture at Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Zhang Xuelian applied to a vegetable seed import and export company in Guangzhou. After working at the company for 8 years, Zhang Xuelian rose to management level and enjoyed a salary of 150,000 yuan per year. She also met her other half in Guangzhou, married, had a child, bought a house and a car, and lived a happy and comfortable life. Settling down in the provincial capital, Zhang Xuelian became the "golden phoenix" admired by all the villagers.

As the days became more and more ordinary, Zhang Xuelian always felt that life lacked a bit of passion. During the National Day holiday in 2013, Zhang Xuelian brought colleagues back to her hometown for a visit. Seeing that the natural environment here was very suitable for farming, Zhang Xuelian's colleague jokingly suggested: "Why don't we grow vegetables here? The conditions here are too suitable." The unintentional joke took root in Zhang Xuelian's heart. After the National Day holiday ended, Zhang Xuelian decided to give up the position where she could see the end of her career at a glance, resolutely resigned, and returned to her hometown to grow peppers.

Her decision received her husband's unconditional support, but her mother found it hard to accept. She had worked hard to raise her daughter, and just as she had settled down and established herself in the big city, her daughter said she wanted to return to the mountain gully to farm. This left Zhang Xuelian's mother, Qiu Juying, unable to understand no matter how she thought about it. But Zhang Xuelian's stubbornness still shook Qiu Juying's heart, which cherished her daughter. Zhang Xuelian and two colleagues who had also resigned began their entrepreneurial career.

From white-collar worker to prosperity leader

Although Yuanqing Village is located in remote deep mountains, its undamaged natural ecological environment, high-quality soil and large temperature difference between day and night give it the conditions to grow high-quality vegetables. Eight years of business experience at a vegetable seed company enabled Zhang Xuelian to skillfully select vegetable varieties and gave her good industry connections and resources, providing technical support and market guarantees for her entrepreneurship.

In the first year of starting the business, Zhang Xuelian and the other two partners rented villagers' fields, took root in the mountain village, and went down to the fields to farm. "The villagers were all very supportive, renting to us at 100 yuan per mu, with the rent increasing by 20% each year starting from the second year. The rent was very low, just symbolic."

In the first year they rented 100 mu of land, half for peppers and half for winter melon. As a result, in the first year the peppers made a profit, while the winter melon, although high-yielding, lost money because of high labor and transportation costs. Learning from the first year's lesson, in the second year they used 90% of the 180 mu of rented land for peppers and the remaining 10% for specialty melons and fruits. "Only after actually farming did I discover that theory still has many problems when applied in practice," Zhang Xuelian said. Now people around her like to call her "Pepper Girl." Although peppers have brought relatively high profits, she also likes to introduce new things, such as chestnut-flavored pumpkin and fruit-flavored corn. "These vegetables and fruits with relatively special flavors are quite popular in the market."

In order to manage these more than 100 mu of land well, Zhang Xuelian bought two micro tillers and taught herself to use them. The harder the work, the more she had to do it herself. After only one year of farming, her skin was tanned dark, and several fine wrinkles were added to her face.

Starting from the first year, Zhang Xuelian hired 6 middle-aged and elderly people left behind in the village as long-term workers, paying each 1,600 yuan per month, so that the elderly had something to do while also having income. Aunt Qiu in the village said that since helping in Zhang Xuelian's fields, she no longer had to go into the mountains to cut firewood because she grudged buying gas. "Now I earn enough in two days of work to pay for a month's gas." During busy farming seasons, Zhang Xuelian also hires villagers as temporary workers. Calculated at 1 yuan per jin of peppers picked, villagers can earn 80 to 100 yuan per day.

This year is the third year of entrepreneurship. Zhang Xuelian and three partners divide work and cooperate. Zhang Xuelian is still responsible for the overall construction and management of the Yuanqing Planting Professional Cooperative. One of the two partners is responsible for Yuanqing Agriculture Co., Ltd., which sells vegetable seeds in Guangzhou, and the other is responsible for agricultural technical support. In addition, Zhang Xuelian's entrepreneurial project attracted two other female university students, also born in the 1980s, who returned from Guangzhou to their hometown of Xingning and are responsible for online sales of agricultural products and local specialties. "Everyone has their own position and performs their own duties."

More talent will devote themselves to agriculture

Large investment, long cycles and slow returns are the three major characteristics of agriculture. Familiar with the characteristics of agricultural production, Zhang Xuelian was fully mentally prepared for losses. But for 2 consecutive years, the Yuanqing Planting Professional Cooperative achieved profits to varying degrees. In 2014, the company's turnover was 2.6 million yuan and net profit was 630,000 yuan. In 2015, turnover reached 6.2 million yuan and net profit was 1.26 million yuan, which was inseparable from Zhang Xuelian's rich market experience and broad connections.

At the beginning of her entrepreneurship, Zhang Xuelian's project received support from old clients of her former company. After Zhang Xuelian resigned to start her business, the old clients turned to buying seeds and produce from her company. At present, 40% of the products of the Yuanqing Planting Professional Cooperative are sold to Taiwan, China, 50% to the Pearl River Delta region, and another 10% are sold within Meizhou City.

Zhang Xuelian, who loves researching new things, not only considers how to grow crops well, but also thinks about continuously extending the industrial chain. In addition to owning a vegetable seed company, a planting professional cooperative and developing a WeChat business platform to sell agricultural products, Zhang Xuelian also opened a local cuisine restaurant in the Xingning urban area, using her own crops as ingredients to make dishes, forming an industrial chain from seeds to food on the table.