Yam Girl Gives Up 100,000-Yuan Salary to Farm and Lead Villagers to Prosperity

"Our yams are pollution-free, different from other people's. You'll know once you taste them, but the price can't be lower." In Henan during the first month of the lunar year, the temperature was still very low, but at the intersection of Ziyou Road and Zhongtong Street in Xinxiang City, citizens crowded in front of the "RV" of Pan Chunting, the "Yam Girl" from Lankao, Henan, buying yams.

"Every year at this time is also our busiest time!" Although the Spring Festival had passed, Pan Chunting was so busy she could not stop for a moment. "Someone ordered dozens of boxes just yesterday, and I still have to go to the cold storage to pick up the goods later." Pan Chunting said that a company had come from out of town and bought over a hundred boxes of yams to take back as year-end benefits for its employees.

"I'm very lucky. Along the way of starting this business, there have always been kind people helping me," Pan Chunting said.

According to Pan Chunting, she dropped out of school after graduating from junior high. At nineteen, she came to Guangzhou alone with a schoolbag on her back and could only work in a factory, earning a monthly salary of just over 300 yuan. Later she worked in sales at a shopping mall, often working overtime.

In 2008, her father, who had always sold goods from a street stall, saw a business opportunity and began growing yams himself to sell. "The seeds were very expensive. Dad borrowed tens of thousands of yuan. With careful management, the yams grew especially well, so he transported them into the city." As repeat customers increased, Pan Chunting's father began to expand the planting area.

The sensible Pan Chunting sent home all the money she had saved from working. Several years later, the family's yam planting area had grown to 80 mu. "The family couldn't manage it all, but I didn't want to go home and become a farmer."

You should know that before returning to Lankao County, Henan, in 2014, Pan Chunting had already struggled in Guangzhou for 10 years and had once been one of a company's top salespeople, able to communicate in Cantonese without any problem, and her annual salary had already exceeded 6 figures.

"Whenever I think of my parents selling yams and sleeping on the street beside their stall at night, and never having had a reunion dinner during the New Year, my heart aches." In 2014, her father passed away from illness. As the eldest daughter, she made up her mind and returned to Lankao, Henan, with 10 years of savings.

In just over a year, on the basis of her father's 80 mu of yam fields, Pan Chunting contracted another 100 mu of land, designed the trademark logo for "Pan Gen Ji Iron Stick Yam," named after her father, and also designed a business card printed with a microshop QR code. Because business was booming, the villagers all called her "Yam Girl."

Later, Pan Chunting found an electric vehicle factory and had a mobile sales truck custom-made, with a sleeper berth in the cab, solar power generation, an LED color display, air conditioning with insulation, and six doors on the side.

"When I'm tired, I can rest for a while in the sleeper berth in the cab. It protects me from wind and rain and sun, and it can also be moved." Tingting named this vehicle "Little Apple Plus Hummer RV." "Even a real Hummer doesn't have a higher turn-around rate than it." The ambitious Pan Chunting also taught herself to drive various agricultural vehicles, 200-horsepower agricultural vehicles, three-wheeled agricultural vehicles, rotary harrows, and more.

"I drive an electric tricycle back and forth all day. I don't even look like a woman."

Now, the fine wrinkles on Pan Chunting's face have become more and more obvious. "When I was in Guangzhou, my skin was fair and clean. Although I was tired, at least I could wear clean clothes every day. Now I deal with yams all day long, and it's all dirt." Pan Chunting joked, "Reality isn't that easy. Just keep your head down and work. Your skin gets dry, and you get old."

At present, Pan Chunting's small company has more than 60 people, "all poor households in the village, doing some simple work to supplement their household income." Pan Chunting said, "I came back from the big city, and I never thought about going back again. This is a fertile land, and I want to put down roots here."