Wu Aiyi Leads Farmers to Prosperity by Sticking Together

From an ordinary farmer to the chairman of a professional cooperative, he has proven through practice that with faith and hard work, the dream of starting a business and becoming wealthy can ultimately be realized, and he has led the villagers onto the road to prosperity. He is Wu Aiyi, deputy secretary of the Party general branch of Sanliang Village, Sanliang Regional Service Center, Tumed Left Banner.

For many years, Wu Aiyi has led local farmers in establishing farmers' professional cooperatives. Through continuous exploration and struggle, he has successfully blazed a path of organizing farmers to move toward common prosperity together, making outstanding contributions to local economic and social development and earning the unanimous recognition of the local government and the people.

After graduating from high school, Wu Aiyi became a civilian teacher at a township middle school, a position that paid only just over 30 yuan per month, and he persisted in it for ten years. Later, Wu Aiyi resigned from his civilian teaching job and, with the help of colleagues and friends, went into the business of selling feed on commission. Over more than a decade, Wu Aiyi accumulated more than 1 million yuan in savings and became a well-known prosperous household in the area. Once he had gained a certain level of strength, Wu Aiyi began to lead the surrounding farmers in advancing the local traditional agriculture onto the path of modern agricultural development. He wanted to organize the individual farming households into a united group to venture into the market...

In 2006, Wu Aiyi mobilized 5 farming households to take the lead in establishing a vegetable association in Sanliang Village. The emergence of the association gave the farmers a backbone and the confidence to bargain in the market. The farmers immediately tasted the benefits of "sticking together," and more farmers began to be willing to work alongside Wu Aiyi.

By 2009, on the foundation of the original vegetable association, 103 farming households in Sanliang Village, under Wu Aiyi's leadership, established the Tumd Left Banner Sijiqing Farmers' Professional Cooperative, and Wu Aiyi was elected as the cooperative's chairman. That same year, the cooperative transferred 120 mu of farmland and built 30 mu of arched greenhouses, and these farmers finally had their own formal organization and base. That spring, the cooperative planted all 30 mu of arched greenhouses with melons. Just as the melons had begun to set fruit, a storm completely overturned all the arched greenhouses, and the more than 2 million yuan of investment was lost entirely. The cooperative had barely gotten started when it suffered this severe blow. At that time, 47 farming households withdrew from the cooperative, and the remaining 56 member households continued to scrape together funds, intending to make a comeback.

Starting from 2010, over the course of two years, the cooperative built another 30 solar greenhouses with polystyrene board walls (effective planting area of 30 mu). In 2012, the cooperative hired technicians from Shandong and rationally arranged the crop rotation structure. That year, they finally succeeded in growing two crops of solanaceous vegetables, with total annual output reaching 500,000 jin, achieving an output value of 600,000 yuan, with an average output value of 20,000 yuan per mu. After local farmers saw the "returns," they clamored to join the cooperative.

"By 2013, cooperative membership had risen back to 103 households, so the original 30 mu of greenhouses clearly could no longer meet the cooperative's needs. Just then, the municipal and banner governments issued preferential policies encouraging the construction of new solar greenhouses, so we transferred another 1,058 mu of land west of Sanliang Village, and in November 2014 completed the construction of 137 thick-walled solar greenhouses, with an effective planting area of 260 mu. The total investment in this project exceeded 50 million yuan, and in late November of that year, all were planted with tomatoes for overwintering cultivation. During the Spring Festival, this crop of tomatoes began to come onto the market one after another, and we seized the early opportunity in Hohhot's vegetable market and sold at a relatively good price. The success of overwintering cultivation of solanaceous vegetables further strengthened the confidence of cooperative members. Practice has proven that only by organizing can farmers accomplish bigger things," Wu Aiyi said.

Now, the Sijiqing Cooperative has two parks, 290 mu of solar greenhouses, more than 50 farming households directly engaged in greenhouse production, and 230 farmers working year-round in the parks. Households directly growing in greenhouses earn an annual income of 60,000 to 70,000 yuan, and each working farmer can earn more than 20,000 yuan per year in wages. These farmers have all benefited from the cooperative's development.

In December 2015, Wu Aiyi was named a "Hundred Civilized Farmers and Herders" leader in prosperity through hard work by the Publicity Department of the Inner Mongolia Party Committee and the Office of the Inner Mongolia Spiritual Civilization Development Committee.

Wu Aiyi has set an example through practical action for farmers who are still hesitating and wavering. In order to lead farmers toward common prosperity, Wu Aiyi has over the years endured hardships beyond what most people could imagine and withstood pressures beyond what most people could bear, but he has finally led the farmers in blazing a path toward modern agriculture. Whenever talk turns to the village's industrial development, the villagers all give Secretary Wu a thumbs-up...