The path to urban-rural integration of new farmer Zan Qinghua
During the Spring Festival season, many farmers are still immersed in the lingering festive mood of the Lunar New Year, but Zan Qinghua, head of the Yutian Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative in Nanpi County, gets up early every day, washes up, and then drives from the urban area of Cangzhou to a vegetable base 20 km away.
The 20 km journey connects the city and the countryside, with home at one end and the vegetable planting base at the other. As for whether his identity is that of a farmer or a city resident, Zan Qinghua says with a smile: "I can't really say either. Let's just call me a new farmer! Because my home is in the urban area of Cangzhou and my workplace is in the countryside, perhaps what I embody most is 'urban-rural integration.'"
Zan Qinghua, 42 this year, is from Shifozan Village, Fengjiakou Town, Nanpi County. After graduation, he worked as a township contract worker, engaged in hardware processing, did business, and also registered the first cooperative in Nanpi County - the Nanpi County Yutian Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative - but none of these were very successful.
It was not until 2010, when the national "12th Five-Year Plan" proposed "encouraging farmers to advance the development of modern agriculture," that Zan Qinghua saw a clear development path. That same year, he contracted more than 400 mu of land in the neighboring village of Diannan Village and began developing large-scale planting, which produced returns within the year. To make the land yield greater benefits, starting in 2012 Zan Qinghua began considering further transformation and decided to take the path of protected agriculture development.
At that time, the state was steadily increasing its support for agriculture, and Nanpi County established the county's first comprehensive agricultural development fiscal subsidy project. After applying, Zan Qinghua took on the project and, with the support of relevant departments, built his first greenhouse in May 2012, with benefits rising again and again. By the end of 2014, the number of protected vegetable greenhouses had increased to 42, and Zan Qinghua's cooperative became the largest modern agriculture demonstration base in Nanpi County.
Because vegetable prices have fluctuated greatly over the past two years, a stretch of overcast days can destroy an entire greenhouse of vegetables. After investigating many options, Zan Qinghua found that edible fungi do not have very high requirements for soil quality and season. Since last year, Zan Qinghua's cooperative has also taken on the edible fungi poverty alleviation project of the Nanpi County Poverty Alleviation Office. In the blink of an eye, an edible fungi project with a cultivation area of 20,000 sq m was completed, leading and driving surrounding impoverished farming households to escape poverty and become better off.
As modern agriculture has continued to grow, Zan Qinghua's life has also changed. His car has gone from "domestically produced" to "joint venture" and now to the current "imported" one, and he has also bought an apartment in the urban area, living the life of a city resident. The change in quality of life has not changed Zan Qinghua's honest nature as someone of farmer origin. Every morning, he sets out from the urban area and hurries to the base to work. Zan Qinghua admits frankly: "If my feet don't get muddy, I don't feel at ease."
Speaking of the changes over the past nearly 10 years, Zan Qinghua said: "To be honest, the base's development to its current scale is entirely thanks to the state's good policies benefiting agriculture. Without such good policies benefiting agriculture and the strong support of departments at all levels, I would not have today at all."
Speaking of development in the next five years, Zan Qinghua told the reporter that he is beginning to investigate "Internet Plus agriculture" projects and wants to use the Internet as an e-commerce platform to sell vegetables. In addition, he is also considering turning the vegetable planting base into a modern agricultural leisure venue integrating sightseeing, picking, and fishing, so that more ordinary people can benefit from agricultural transformation and more impoverished households can be lifted out of poverty.