Post-90s female village official spends all her savings researching mushrooms to lead villagers to prosperity

Yan Qingling, 25 years old this year, is a selected university-graduate village official. She uses the knowledge she gained at university, combines it with the local advantages, and develops edible mushroom cultivation to lead villagers out of poverty and toward prosperity.

When the reporter met Yan Qingling, she was explaining edible mushroom cultivation techniques to the villagers. These past few days, she has been paying close attention to the growth of the mushrooms every day, hoping this year's mushrooms can fetch a good price.

Yan Qingling, a university-graduate village official in Dukouyi Township, Xiajin County: "This greenhouse was newly built this year. We mainly grow the 'Shuangkang Heiyou' oyster mushroom variety. This variety has high yield, good taste, and is easy to grow, making it very suitable for promotion among local people. This year the villagers have also seen the benefits of this greenhouse, and ten households plan to join us and continue expanding."

Yan Qingling is from the urban area of Dezhou. After graduating from university, she could have found a stable job in Dezhou's urban area, but she preferred to temper herself at the grassroots level. In July 2014, after rounds of selection, she became a university-graduate village official. When she first arrived in Dukouyi Community, Yan Qingling found that local people had a habit of growing vegetables, but the scale was small, the techniques were backward, and the plots were scattered. During a survey of the local farmers' market, she spotted a business opportunity.

Yan Qingling: "At the time I attended a farmer entrepreneurship training session and discovered that Xiajin supplies about 80% of the cottonseed hulls to the national edible mushroom industry, but the local edible mushroom industry is not very developed. After I came back and did a survey, I found that Dudong Village has very rich land resources, abundant water, and a relatively large surplus labor force, making it very suitable for developing the edible mushroom industry."

She acted as soon as she decided. During the day, Yan Qingling busied herself with village work; at night, she looked up information. She went deep into the fields, talked with local people again and again, and repeatedly investigated local conditions such as climate, water conservancy, and culture. She found that Dudong Village had a certain foundation in greenhouse cultivation and was very suitable for developing the edible mushroom industry. In October 2014, Yan Qingling, who had just gotten married, took out all 30,000 yuan of her savings and began her entrepreneurial plan. However, the road to entrepreneurship was not so smooth.

Yan Qingling: "In the early days of starting the business, I indeed encountered many difficulties. For example, when we first produced shiitake mushrooms in large batches, due to improper operation by our technical workers, plus our negligence during sterilization, insufficient sterilization time, and other reasons, our first batch of 20,000 shiitake mushrooms were all infected, with losses of nearly 20,000 (yuan)."