48-year-old Liu Haixiong founded an agricultural eco-park to lead his neighbors to prosperity
What is an agricultural eco-park?
An agricultural eco-park is a park that uses the eco-park model to lay out and produce agriculture within a sightseeing park, integrating agricultural activities, natural scenery, scientific and technological demonstrations, leisure and entertainment, and environmental protection, so as to achieve the unity of ecological benefits, economic benefits and social benefits.
An agricultural eco-park, also called an agricultural leisure park, refers to an agricultural operation that uses pastoral landscapes, natural ecology and environmental resources, combines farming, forestry, fishery and livestock production, agricultural business activities, rural culture and family life, provides leisure for citizens, and aims to enhance citizens' experience of agriculture and rural areas; it is a new type of industrial park that integrates tourism functions, agricultural efficiency-enhancing functions, and greening, beautification and environmental improvement functions.
The overall planning of an agricultural eco-park is the most important thing. It should fully reflect adapting measures to local conditions, comprehensive planning and design, cultivating quality products, creating a thematic image, giving consideration to benefits, and achieving sustainable development. In terms of functions, based on resource attributes, landscape characteristics and the existing environment, while considering maintaining the original natural terrain and the integrity of the original eco-park, and in light of future development and objective needs, appropriate designs should be adopted in the planning to realize functional zoning within the park. In the design, an ecological agriculture demonstration area, a sightseeing agriculture tourism area and a science education function area can be set up according to local conditions.
There is such a person who founded an agricultural eco-park and opened the door to prosperity for his neighbors. He is Liu Haixiong. He has raised fish, fed pigs, grown vegetables and run a supermarket. He began his entrepreneurial ventures in the 1990s. Now, through his own efforts, he has realized his entrepreneurial dream, creating Haiquan Agricultural Eco-Park in Chenti Village, Shuangxiqiao Town, Xian'an District, and driving his fellow villagers to become prosperous together. The eco-park integrates agricultural sightseeing, leisure experiences and the production and sales of agricultural and forestry products.
Spotting business opportunities and accumulating wealth
Liu Haixiong, now 48 years old, was born in the former Longtan Township, Xian'an District. In 1984, after finishing high school, he went home and started farming with his father. At first he raised fish, but because of technical problems, he later switched to raising pigs, though the pig market was not good at the time.
In 1992, Liu Haixiong invited a master with rich vegetable-growing experience from Honghu to grow vegetables in the village, and he learned growing techniques from him. That year, he earned more than 6,000 yuan from just over one mu of vegetables.
Seeing that Liu Haixiong made money growing vegetables, local villagers began to learn from him, and he selflessly taught them vegetable-growing techniques. Later, with his help, many villagers' lives changed greatly.
Liu Haixiong said: "The key to entrepreneurship is being good at discovering business opportunities."
In 2000, Liu Haixiong found that the osmanthus seedling market in Xian'an had good prospects. So he rented 20 mu of land and planted it all with osmanthus seedlings by cuttings. In less than 2 years, he earned several hundred thousand yuan.
By spotting business opportunities and seizing them, Liu Haixiong's assets snowballed and grew more and more.
Leading fellow villagers to become prosperous together
In 2009, when Liu Haixiong saw that many young and middle-aged people in rural areas were going out to work and large amounts of land were left abandoned, he had the idea of leading villagers to become prosperous at their doorstep. It happened that in that same year, Liu Haixiong's mother became paralyzed after a stroke, which made him realize the importance of health. So he came up with the idea of founding an agricultural eco-park.
He acted as soon as he decided. In 2010, Liu Haixiong transferred more than 400 mu of land in Chenti Village, Shuangxiqiao Town, Xian'an District, and created Haiquan Agricultural Eco-Park. The project has invested more than 3 million yuan, and the first phase of construction is basically complete, integrating sightseeing, leisure, tasting, hands-on experiences, and the production and sales of green agricultural products.
Liu Haixiong attaches great importance to technical cooperation, and has successively carried out technical cooperation with the Xianning Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Hubei University of Science and Technology. Combined with the overall planning of the agricultural eco-park, it fully reflects adapting measures to local conditions, comprehensive planning and design, cultivating quality products, creating a thematic image, giving consideration to benefits, and achieving sustainable development. In terms of functions, based on resource attributes, landscape characteristics and the existing environment, while considering maintaining the original natural terrain and the integrity of the original eco-park, and in light of future development and objective needs.
At present, Liu Haixiong's agricultural eco-park has more than 80 mu of planted forest, 80 mu of orchard, 60 mu of osmanthus garden and more than 40 mu of fish ponds, with an annual output value of about 3.5 million yuan and more than 8,000 person-times of employment per year.
Over the years, Liu Haixiong has solved employment difficulties for some local villagers and helped many villagers increase their incomes and become prosperous. He has been rated as a model worker of Xian'an District and an expert in leading people to prosperity under the dual leadership of Party members in Xian'an District.
Building the eco-park is only the initial goal. For the second-phase planning of the agricultural eco-park, Liu Haixiong plans to establish an agricultural cooperative and carry out large-scale production of green agricultural products according to quality standards, so that more local villagers can find employment at their doorstep.
Liu Haixiong said that his next goal is to drive local farmers to become prosperous, run the agricultural eco-park better, create his own agricultural ecological brand, and let local agricultural products go farther and farther.