Farmers Follow Zhu Lin on the Cooperative Road to Prosperity
With the development of modern agriculture and the adjustment of the industrial structure, Zhu Lin, a villager of Renmin Village, Renmin Town, Anda City, saw the opportunity and actively mobilized and guided farmers to transfer land in accordance with the law, promoting the transfer of land to large-scale growers and specialized farmer cooperative organizations.
In February 2012, Zhu Lin registered Renfeng Planting Professional Cooperative with 500,000 yuan in registered capital. In April of the same year, he set up the supporting Renfeng Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, building Renfeng Planting Professional Cooperative into a fully functional agricultural production cooperative, truly setting the cooperative on a track of "modernized, scientific, mechanized and large-scale" operation. Internally, it manages according to law and regulations, improves mechanisms, and issues a series of rules and regulations such as the "Financial Management System" and the "Post Management System", so that every member understands their own "responsibilities, rights and interests", improving work efficiency.
At present, the cooperative has 231 member households and operates 13,200 mu of land on a large scale. Among them, the land area operated by members is 5,040 mu, with 46 large agricultural machines (sets), complete with supporting machinery for land preparation, sowing, plant protection and harvesting, realizing the agricultural development goal of "contiguous large-scale land operation, modern large agricultural machinery, and mechanized operations".
In 2015, the cooperative founded by Zhu Lin had a rich harvest, with total assets exceeding 18 million yuan, sales revenue of 6.41 million yuan, and a total surplus of 2.83 million yuan, with each member household increasing income by more than 5,000 yuan on average.
Grasping land transfer and using the combined force of the large-scale operation model to drive development is an important business philosophy of Zhu Lin.
"Following the principle of first inside then outside, first easy then difficult, we absorb farmers into the cooperative and take land as shares." Zhu Lin said that 122 households in the village transferred 2,770 mu of land to the cooperative in the form of land shares. Calculated at an annual yield of 1,000 jin per mu, farmers are guaranteed a base income of 400 jin of wet grain per mu. For yields exceeding 1,000 jin, the cooperative and farmers split the excess 50-50, with a transfer period of 5 years. In 2012, cooperative members' income increased by 230 yuan per mu, farmers working outside the village increased income by 12,000 yuan per person on average, and member farmer households increased income by 13,000 yuan on average.
Zhu Lin knows well that only by expanding the area of large-scale operation can more benefits reach the people. On the premise of realizing whole-village transfer, in 2014 Zhu Lin extended the reach of cooperative operation to other villages, successively absorbing 109 farmer households in Xinyi Village, Yixin Village and his own village into the cooperative, operating 2,270 mu of land. Farmers participating in the operation through membership can earn about 30,000 yuan a year from their land share payment, raising the development scale of the cooperative.
Adjusting the planting structure and using the internal force of advanced management techniques to drive development is also a development direction Zhu Lin has always adhered to.
Zhu Lin led the cooperative to assess the situation and, through a general meeting of all members, established the 2015 planting plan, seeking benefits from structural adjustment. It actively signed corn silage planting contracts with major ranches such as Beingmate and Xinda Dairy Farming Professional Cooperative, increasing the proportion of feed planting. In 2015, 5,040 mu of silage corn was planted, with a yield of 3.5 tons of silage corn per mu and an average income of 1,270 yuan per mu, an increase of more than 230 yuan per mu compared with planting corn.
In 2013, Zhu Lin formed a strong alliance with Northeast Agricultural University and the Heilongjiang Green Food Research Institute, planning the cooperative's development direction and goals, which is to play the circular agriculture card and make money from ecological agriculture. It focuses on promoting and applying 8 green ecological agricultural technologies, reasonably selecting high-quality corn varieties according to the accumulated temperature zone of the Anda area to increase yield and income, and seeking benefits from ecological agriculture. It purchased straw baling machines and returning machines to handle corn straw, and sold it to biomass power plants to increase land added value. Deep loosening in autumn maximizes the protection of soil moisture. Returning straw to the field increases soil looseness, improves soil nutrients, and provides an excellent environment for microbial growth. It increases the application of biological bacterial fertilizer and reduces the amount of chemical fertilizer to avoid soil compaction and degradation and ensure the food safety of crops. It actively promotes the original ridge card seeding technique to protect cultivated land and reduce costs. Thus, it achieves the new goal of low cost, pollution-free production of high value-added green agricultural products.
"Relying on the green base, we register Renfeng Cooperative's own trademark, build our own brand, and realize the model of 'sales company + cooperative + standardization' to ensure that the income of member farmers increases year by year." Zhu Lin's approach is to seek benefits from the brand market.