Returning home to grow sweet potato shoots brings wealth, annual profit reaches one million yuan
Chen Weihong working in the vineyard.
Chen Weihong, 48 this year, was born and raised in Fangxing Town, Xinjin County, Chengdu, and is seen by everyone as a capable man. He leads everyone in growing high-grade grapes and ecological vegetables, sold to major supermarkets in Beijing, Tibet, Chongqing and Sichuan. Every year at the start of the year, well-known supermarkets such as Ito and Yonghui take the initiative to find Chen Weihong and sign annual supply orders. Over a year, his profit from selling vegetables and fruit is nearly 2 million yuan.
Spotted a business opportunity at the vegetable market and resolutely quit his job to return home and start a business
"It looks like the business is on track now, but when I first came back to prepare for starting a business, I still went through a lot of hardship." Speaking of his entrepreneurial history, Chen Weihong feels there was no shortcut. In the 1990s, unwilling to be a farmer for a lifetime, he went to Guangdong and did the hardest, most tiring odd jobs on construction sites.
Once, he went with the foreman to buy vegetables and spotted a business opportunity at the vegetable market. "Green ecological vegetables at the market cost 2 times more than ordinary vegetables, but quite a few people still bought them." Chen Weihong immediately invited his fellow townsmen and hurried back to Xinjin to do market research, found it had great prospects, and so resolutely decided to return home to start a business.
Sweet potato shoots had no buyers, but he put them on city residents' dining tables
"In the past, sweet potato shoots were taken home in rural areas to feed pigs; nobody ate them. Through our promotion over the years, everyone not only eats them cold-tossed, but they are also very popular blanched in hot pot." Speaking of putting the once-ignored sweet potato shoots on city residents' dining tables, Chen Weihong feels he bet on the right treasure.
In 2003, Chen Weihong discovered that a certain variety of sweet potato he grew only produced shoots and did not grow much root, smelled very fresh and fragrant, and tasted very crisp. He sent the sweet potato shoots to a testing department for nutritional testing, and found they were even higher in nutritional value than some everyday vegetables on the market, with better taste. Moreover, through his improvement, the harvest period of the sweet potato shoots can last as long as three seasons (March-November), and over 1,000 kg can be picked per mu.
Immediately, Chen Weihong began trying to sell sweet potato shoots. Besides taking them to the county town vegetable market to sell every day, he also rode a motorcycle to deliver freshly picked sweet potato shoots to hotels, restaurants and supermarkets of all sizes in Chengdu to promote them. At first, he was turned away many times, so he simply made up his mind and provided them free to hotels and restaurants, letting them taste first.
Three months later, his sweet potato shoots went from having no buyers to selling better and better, from door-to-door sales to market wholesale, and from the vegetable market straight into Chengdu's large supermarkets. Having tasted the joy of initial success, Chen Weihong expanded the planting scale of sweet potato shoots and broadened sales channels, becoming a well-known large-scale grower near and far.
Leading villagers to get rich together, annual per capita income increase of 20,000 yuan
Now, the planting area of sweet potato shoots has expanded from more than 500 mu to more than 1,000 mu, with an annual output value of more than 6 million yuan and a profit of 1 million yuan. In addition, the grapes he grows are in short supply at the Chengdu Simaqiao wholesale market; some wholesalers even cannot wait and carry cash to the grape base to pick them themselves. Yellow grapes can sell for 15 yuan/jin at market wholesale, and black grapes can sell for 20 yuan/jin. This year's output value is expected to reach at least 5 million yuan, with a profit of nearly one million yuan.
His planting farm absorbs more than 400 laborers and 200-300 temporary workers, of whom those aged 40-50 account for more than 80% of the total, older women laborers account for more than 70% of the total, the per capita wage reaches more than 2,000 yuan, and the annual per capita income of local villagers increases by 20,000 yuan.