Melons sweet to the heart, growers welcome a sweet harvest
"Working for Old Liu is worth it! More than 70 yuan a day, where else could I earn that? The more I earn, the happier I'll be for the New Year!" On February 1, villager Yan Li said while sorting melon seedlings.
The greenhouse was warm, filled with the smell of soil, and the freshly transplanted melon seedlings stretched out their tender leaves and vines, doing their utmost to grow.
Yan Li is a villager of Toudaogou Village, Jiujiao Subdistrict, Jiutai District, Changchun City. Like more than 30 other villagers from her village, she has worked year-round at the Fengtian Melon Planting Farmers' Cooperative.
Old Liu's name is Liu Jianguo. He is the chairman of this melon cooperative, with more than 20 years of experience growing melons. He now has 20 greenhouses, and a single greenhouse brings an average annual net income of 30,000 yuan. Old Liu said the melon seedlings he is tending now will mature and go to market in another 3 months, and can sell for 14 yuan/kg.
Besides selling melons, the cooperative mainly sells melon seedlings to order. Whatever seedlings customers specify, Liu Jianguo grows them. The most recent order came from Yongji. "A couple of days ago they ordered 37,000 melon seedlings, with a total value of 25,700 yuan. The contract has already been signed, and they will come to pick up the seedlings in mid-April this year. There are also Yanji, Siping, Baicheng..." As Liu Jianguo counted off the orders one by one, the women working beside him could not help laughing, laughing very happily.
Liu Jianguo said the cooperative not only provides melon seedlings and vines and sells melons, but most importantly provides medicine services. That is, for the pests and diseases encountered in the process of growing melons, all the growers who have used the medicines he formulated trust him. In addition, he also provides technical services for melon growers, and the technical services are free. "The main thing is to make the sale of melon seedlings and the integrated one-stop service of technical medicines bigger and stronger, not limited to selling melons, but to improve the comprehensive benefits of agriculture."
Villager Sun Yujie also works for Old Liu. She nimbly sorted the seedling-raising nutrient pots, making preliminary preparations for cultivating seedlings. "I stay close to home, it's not tiring, and I can take care of my family. How great is that! I hope Old Liu's melon garden gets bigger and bigger, so we can keep earning money here!" As soon as she finished speaking, a burst of hearty laughter spread through the greenhouse.