Chicken Commander Liu Zhijun: Leading Villagers to Get Rich Together
Liu Zhijun works at the Black Chicken Breeding Farm.
An ordinary farmer who became wealthy first through his diligent hands and extraordinary courage, he never forgot his fellow villagers and threw himself wholeheartedly into leading them to prosperity. He is Liu Zhijun, former director of the village committee of Longque Village, Sanban Town, Dehua County, general manager of Dehua County Daiyun Black Chicken Breeding Co., Ltd., and one of Fujian Province's Most Beautiful Grassroots Figures and Most Beautiful Farmers.
The Village Director Who Abandoned Business to Return Home
Liu Zhijun joined the army in 1991. After being discharged, he seized the market opportunity in mobile communications products and successively opened 5 chain stores for communications equipment in Dehua, with an annual income of more than one million yuan.
"In 2003, as the village committee election drew near, the old village party secretary came to see me, hoping I would run for village director," Liu Zhijun recalled. "Since I left the village to join the army, the number of times I'd returned could be counted on one hand. I never expected to be elected, but I agreed to register."
When the election results came out, Liu Zhijun was elected village director by a landslide. He later learned that the villagers, having heard his business outside was thriving, hoped he would return home to lead them to prosperity.
At the time, mobile communications equipment sales were in a golden period, but Liu Zhijun transferred his chain stores and returned home to serve as village director.
The "Chicken Commander" Who Blazed a Road to Prosperity
When Liu Zhijun returned, the village had only 253 households, scattered across the area. The 3 natural villages were connected by only a single narrow, rugged footpath. Villagers went out with mud all over their shoes on rainy days and dust all over on sunny days. How to lift the hat of poverty from the villagers' heads was a question that lingered in Liu Zhijun's mind from the very start of his return.
"At first, the villagers hoped I would bring in a few enterprises. I invited several groups of potential investors to inspect the village, but in the end they all gave up because of poor transportation and limited conditions," Liu Zhijun said. "The villagers' expectations are a heavy burden weighing on my shoulders. I fear that if I don't do well, I'll delay everyone's opportunities for development."
At the end of 2003, just as Liu Zhijun was thinking about how to change the village's backward conditions and increase both village collective income and farmers' income, he heard villagers calling their chickens back to the coop, and a flash of inspiration struck him: Longque Village has plenty of mountainous land and unique natural conditions, so why not try raising Daiyun black chickens?
After some investigation, in March 2004, Dehua Daiyun Black Chicken Breeding Co., Ltd. was formally established under Liu Zhijun's initiative.
At the beginning, the biggest problem was not knowing breeding and reproduction techniques. Using the traditional hatching methods for ordinary domestic chickens to hatch black chicken eggs resulted in a low hatch rate, and the chicks that hatched were small with a low survival rate. Liu Zhijun collected a large pile of professional books and painstakingly "chewed" through them one by one; he paid for a senior animal husbandry expert to stay in the village for more than 3 years, giving hands-on guidance to the breeders; when funds were tight, Liu Zhijun took out more than 200,000 yuan of his savings to build a black chicken breeding room and hatching room. Today, the hatching success rate of Daiyun black chicken eggs has risen from less than 50% to around 92%, and the chick survival rate from 70% to 95%. The Daiyun black chicken improved breed breeding and reproduction project also won the third prize of the Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award in 2008.
To expand the sales market for Daiyun black chickens, Liu Zhijun strictly controlled breeding quality. He put a QR code leg band on every Daiyun black chicken, bearing identity information such as the breed, birth date, and cooperative to which the chicken belonged; the leg band number was entered into a computer, and at purchase time the raising period of every black chicken was strictly controlled, with "zero tolerance" for additive feed; high-definition video surveillance cameras spread across every breeding hill enabled consumers to achieve full "quality and safety traceability" of Daiyun black chickens from breeder to dining table. In management, Liu Zhijun implemented performance assessments for the breeders and gave hefty year-end rewards to those with high breeding quality, "tying" the breeders' hearts to him. To sell black chickens nationwide, Liu Zhijun created an electronic ordering platform for black chicken agricultural products and signed an agreement with SF Express, so that when customers place an order online, the cleaned black chicken can be delivered within 48 hours.
The Daiyun black chicken brand grew ever more prominent. In Longque Village alone, more than 120 households joined the breeding ranks, raising more than 300,000 black chickens annually. The villagers' per capita annual net income rose from 3,800 yuan in the past to more than 10,000 yuan. Longque Village became a veritable black chicken specialized village and also radiated outward to drive more than 10 surrounding townships including Longxun, Gaide, and Nancheng. In 2015, the black chicken inventory of the entire Dehua County reached more than 800,000, and this single item alone could increase villagers' income by more than 10 million yuan each year. Raising black chickens became a distinctive economic industry for farmers in Dehua County to increase income and achieve prosperity, and Liu Zhijun thus became known as the "Chicken Commander."