Arm Amputee in Dongpo District, Meishan, Sichuan Carves Out a Path to Prosperity

"This year I planted 24 mu of high-quality strawberries. Calculating at an average income of 15,000 yuan per mu, the total income can reach 360,000 yuan." In early March, Wan Lin, a one-armed disabled man from Zhongfu Village, Fusheng Township, Dongpo District, Meishan City, who was busy picking strawberries in his greenhouse, told reporters cheerfully.

Wan Lin, 46, said that Zhongfu Village, where he lives, is a municipal-level poverty-stricken village. Like other villagers, his family's economic situation was originally very poor. Unexpectedly, an accident several years ago left him disabled with the loss of his right arm, and from then on the family's life became difficult to endure. As the head of the household, Wan Lin felt in his agonizing reflections that to change his fate of poverty, he still had to rely on his own efforts. So Wan Lin, despite his disability, pulled himself together and made inquiries far and wide about projects suitable for him. He first engaged in commercial feed business, then took up large-scale pig farming. Thanks to his hard work and endurance and his sound management, everything went smoothly, and his snowballing savings grew bigger and bigger.

Do not chase trends when they peak; switch when the outlook is good. The potential risks in the livestock market quickly led Wan Lin to switch to strawberry cultivation. The information came in the spring of 2013, when a friend at a strawberry base in Jianyang County took the initiative to recommend the market "money" prospects of strawberry cultivation to him. In response, Wan Lin made a special trip to the Jianyang strawberry base to investigate. Seeing that one mu of strawberries could generate more than 30,000 yuan in returns, he could hardly wait and spent several days in the base, sincerely and humbly learning and seeking the "true essence" of the techniques, and on the spot purchased 17,000 high-quality strawberry seedlings of varieties such as "Fengxiang" and "Chocolate," planting them in 6 mu of nursery land. At the same time, he also transferred 40 mu of land from local villagers in one go, transplanted all the seedlings into strawberries starting in September, began trial fruiting and production in late November, and continued picking until the end of April 2014, achieving a total strawberry income of 250,000 yuan.

Because the initial planting required huge investments in purchasing seedlings, renting land, fertilizing, paying temporary workers' wages, and building steel-frame greenhouses, buying electric irrigation pumps, motorized sprayers, drip irrigation facilities, and so on, although he did not recover his capital in the first year, he gained more technical knowledge and material conditions for growing strawberries, which further strengthened Wan Lin's confidence in growing higher-yielding crops. In September 2014, he reduced the original 40 mu of strawberry planting area to 24 mu, and took meticulous care in every step, from seedling raising, transplanting, fertilizing, drip irrigation, temperature regulation to picking. Therefore, in the spring harvest of 2015, the strawberries exceeded 10,000 yuan per mu. He continued planting that autumn, and from the start of production and picking to the spring of this year, the strawberries of the two varieties "Fengxiang" and "Chocolate" were all sold at prices ranging from 10 yuan to 20 yuan, with an estimated total income of 360,000 yuan, an average income of 15,000 yuan per mu. After deducting costs for pesticides, fertilizers, labor, mechanical irrigation, and so on, the average net profit per mu was more than 10,000 yuan. Wan Lin told reporters, "Growing strawberries alone is not my only option. In recent years, taking advantage of the strawberry base's proximity to Provincial Highway 106, I have also opened a farmhouse restaurant on site, built a fish pond, and constructed a new parking lot. In this way, strawberry picking, pond fishing, dining consumption, and sightseeing tourism are integrated to attract visitors from the Meishan urban area, forming comprehensive benefits, and providing work for more than 20 villagers locally."

According to Yuan Jihui, head of Fusheng Township, under Wan Lin's demonstration and leadership, the township's strawberry industry has grown from nothing in the past two or three years, and by this year the planting area has developed to more than 80 mu, with more than 10 households engaged in strawberry cultivation, generating an annual income of more than 1 million yuan from this single item alone. "Thanks entirely to the guidance and help of Wan Lin, the large-scale grower, my 10 mu of strawberries this year brought in more than 100,000 yuan in net profit alone," said Ren Hongyi, a villager from Group 2 of Zhongfu Village, excitedly.