Chen Zigui's Guide to Prosperity: How He Achieved Increased Income

Green trees and blue mountains stretch to the orchard, red bricks and porcelain walls line the eaves of new buildings, golden cured meat hangs beneath the eaves, and old couplets on the doors are swapped for new ones... Recently, this writer walked into Jianshan Village, Helukou Town, Jianghua Yao Autonomous County, as if stepping into a pastoral poem of rural farmhouse abundance...

In 2007, Chen Zigui borrowed 20,000 yuan in startup capital, repaired the pigsty, bought 50 piglets, and began his pig-farming entrepreneurial journey. From then on, regardless of winter or summer, 5 a.m. was the time Chen Zigui and his wife got up punctually. Afterward, feeding the pigs and cleaning the manure alone kept them busy until after 12 noon. After a quick couple of bites of food, the two would start busying themselves with mixing feed in the afternoon. At night, if a sow was giving birth, they had to stay by her side without leaving for even a moment.

This was a day in the life of Chen Zigui and his wife, simple, busy, and monotonous. Yet for them, it was an interesting thing, because every time Chen Zigui saw plump, round-bellied fat pigs frolicking all over the pen, it was as if he could see hope.

Hope also has its moments of disappointment. In the spring of 2008, the piglets in the pigsty contracted foot-and-mouth disease, which for Chen Zigui, who had borrowed money to start his business, was like adding frost to snow. Besides applying medicated liquid to the pigs' hooves for disinfection every day, Chen Zigui and his wife simply laid out a bed next to the pigsty and moved in to sleep with the pigs, getting up two or three times each night to check for anything unusual. Under his careful care, the pigs' condition was brought under control, but nearly half of the pigs still died. Someone quietly told Chen Zigui that he could sell the dead pigs to a factory to be processed into sausages to reduce his losses, but he refused outright. In Chen Zigui's view, pig farming must never betray one's conscience. When staff from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau heard about his situation, they were moved by his passion and integrity toward the breeding industry, took the initiative to find him, explained the small-sum guaranteed interest-subsidized loan policy to him, and within the shortest possible time secured the small-sum guaranteed interest-subsidized loan for him.

Chen Zigui tore down the pigsty, built two pig farms, constructed a 120-cubic-meter biogas digester, and contracted barren hills to plant 40 mu of Newhall navel oranges and 160 mu of rose-fragrant mandarin oranges. From then on, Chen Zigui planted forage grass beneath the fruit trees as pig feed to change the pigs' diet. Every day, the manure discharged by the pigs flowed directly into the biogas digester, and the biogas produced through fermentation was used for cooking and lighting, while the biogas residue and biogas slurry became organic fertilizer sprayed on the fruit trees. This is the "pig-biogas-fruit" circular ecological agriculture. Chen Zigui said: "Now I market 1,500 pigs annually, the average yield of rose-fragrant mandarin oranges is 6,000 jin per mu, and the average yield of Newhall navel oranges is 3,000 jin per mu."

When He Xinlian, a villager from Jianshan Village, saw that Chen Zigui had grown rich by planting Newhall navel oranges and rose-fragrant mandarin oranges, she wanted to plant them too, but she had no capital. When villager Mo Changlong saw that Chen Zigui had grown rich by raising pigs, he wanted to raise pigs too, but he also had no capital. When villager Chen Liangyun wanted to follow the same "pig-biogas-fruit" circular ecological agricultural path as Chen Zigui, he likewise had no capital. Chen Zigui enthusiastically told the villagers: "The Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has interest-subsidized loans. No collateral is needed; as long as there is a guarantor, it can be arranged. The Human Resources and Social Security Bureau is our farmers' God of Wealth!" Chen Zigui even patiently explained to the villagers the growth habits of the fruit saplings and his pig-raising experience, and even taught the villagers planting and management hand by hand. His enthusiasm and patience won the villagers' full recognition and deep trust.

At present, Jianshan Village has developed a total of 48 pig-farming households, including 28 large-scale pig farms, with an annual market volume of 30,000 pigs and an annual output value of 50 million yuan. More than 40 households of villagers have built biogas digesters and are using clean energy. The entire village has 460 households and 2,200 people, planting 10,000 mu of rose-fragrant mandarin oranges, achieving nearly 5 mu of rose-fragrant mandarin oranges per capita.