From Alkali Flats to Vegetable Garden: 134th Regiment Worker Mao Hailin Boosts Income with Greenhouses

Mao Hailin, a migrant worker who came to Xinjiang to find work, relied on his diligent hands and an unyielding spirit to struggle through the early days of building a livelihood, and actually turned a stretch of alkali flats into a verdant vegetable garden. Using new greenhouse technology, he forged a path of circular development, going from having nothing to living quite comfortably in just five or six years. On January 18, Mao Hailin was nominated by the Spiritual Civilization Office of the 134th Regiment as one of the candidates for the regiment's moral model in the category of diligence, thrift and self-reliance.

Mao Hailin is a worker of the 8th Company of the 134th Regiment. In his early years in inland China, he heard that the **XPCC could make money, so he came to the 134th Regiment to work. After arriving at the 8th Company, he did short-term work for the workers. At that time, apart from his physical strength, Mao Hailin had nothing. A man with a good head on his shoulders, Mao Hailin thought that always working for others would not earn him much money, that this certainly would not do, and that he had to find a way out.

In 2009, Mao Hailin contracted 10 mu of wine grapes in the company. The harvest was good, but the income was low. Add to that expenses such as his children's schooling, and life was still very difficult. It seemed that without finding a new way out, life could not go on. He calmed down and looked at what special skills he had, and he discovered that he was especially good at growing vegetables and raising pigs. So he discussed it with his wife: while tending the grapes well, they would focus on growing good vegetables and raising good pigs to increase the family's income.

Growing vegetables and raising pigs was all well and good, but the question was: where to grow the vegetables and where to raise the pigs? Actually, Mao Hailin had long had his eye on an abandoned sheep pen at the 8th Company. The pen was a bit run-down, but it could be made do with. The soil around the sheep pen was poor, being saline-alkali land, but the location was very spacious, close to a water source, and very suitable for raising livestock. Mao Hailin told the company cadres his idea, and the company cadres were very supportive, saying it was just sitting idle anyway. Thus, in the spring of 2010, Mao Hailin's whole family moved to the alkali flats he had set his sights on and began the long road of increasing income.

For that patch of alkali land, the hardworking Mao Hailin couple could not afford to pay for machine plowing, so they used manual labor, turning the alkali land over one spadeful at a time. The two of them spent a full two days doing it. They dug channels, used flood irrigation, and drained the alkali. It took them half a month, but they actually flushed the white alkali away clean. Barren land would not do without fertilizer, so the Mao Hailin couple used handcarts and donkey carts, pestering their way into other people's pens to load manure. The other people's terms were quite harsh: they had to haul the manure out themselves and were also responsible for bedding down the pens properly. Mao Hailin had no money to pay for the fertilizer, so he had to settle it through labor exchange. One cart, two carts, less than an acre of land, and he actually hauled more than 400 cartloads. According to him, he spread a full 5 cm of fertilizer on the ground. He said he did not believe it would not grow crops. After finishing all this, Mao Hailin finally breathed a sigh of relief. He planted the vegetables, tidied up the old pen, brought in 10 sows, and looked forward to a good harvest.

However, what awaited them was something terrible. The vegetable seedlings curled, turned yellow and wilted as they grew, and finally died. As for the pigs, it was not a good year, the market was sluggish, and no matter what, they just would not make money. Mao Hailin, who had fully expected to make a big profit, fell into deep disappointment and at one point wanted to give up. Seeing this, Mao Hailin's wife counseled him, saying, apart from growing vegetables and raising pigs, what else can we do? If we do not even want to do this, how will we live? It seemed there was no way back, so they could only keep going. Mao Hailin carefully analyzed his current situation. If he still went in for ordinary vegetable cultivation, he would have no particular advantage and could not make money; he had to go in for sunlight greenhouse vegetable production. For pig raising, he had to raise high-quality pigs; mixed-breed pigs definitely would not do. When the market was sluggish, he could lower costs by growing green feed himself, using maintained space in exchange for market price. Once the decision was made, he acted immediately.

Mao Hailin first went to a bookstore to buy materials on vegetable growing. Following what the books said, he studied while exploring, and slowly mastered the seedling-raising, management and pest and disease control techniques described in the books. When he ran into difficult problems, he also sought on-site technical guidance from technicians. In the spring of the second year, he planted 0.5 mu of cucumbers, which brought in more than 3,000 yuan that year. Having had a first taste of success, Mao Hailin gradually expanded the area and bought materials to build a simple greenhouse. By 2013, he had developed more than 2 mu of greenhouse area, growing some specialty vegetables from the south, which were especially in demand around the regiment.

To fully raise the economic benefits of vegetable production, in spring he focused mainly on cucumber production, and he had already mastered early-spring cucumber production techniques. Every year, whether in terms of yield, time to market, or income, he was ahead. Each year, early-spring cucumbers could reach 10,000 jin per mu, and their time to market was at least 15 days earlier than other farmers, with benefits reaching more than 40,000 yuan per mu. In order to reasonably arrange autumn crop rotation, make full use of existing greenhouse facilities, improve the economic benefits of greenhouse production, and both seek high benefits and avoid affecting winter seedling raising, Mao Hailin, through continuous experimentation, summarized a set of techniques for extending autumn vegetable production.

In feeding pigs, he emphasized science. What to feed, how much to feed, and when to feed, he had a systematic method for all of it. He paid special attention to the survival rate of piglets from sows. Other people put newborn piglets into warm rooms to raise them, afraid the piglets would catch cold, but he did the opposite, putting newly born pigs into normal temperatures to withstand the test of the environment. He said that only piglets that adapt to the environment will have stronger vitality and be less likely to die. The sows he raised had a survival rate of 12.5 piglets per litter, more than 2 higher than others. This greatly reduced the cost of the pigs. Mao Hailin also used some vegetable leaves to feed the pigs, increasing the pigs' green feed, letting the pigs eat reassuring grass, and then using pig manure to fertilize the vegetables. This is what Mao Hailin called a circular economy: green and environmentally friendly, taking the path of circular economy. Mao Hailin's ecological pigs were very famous and favored by consumers. In 2015, pigs alone generated more than 70,000 in benefits. While continuously exploring and summing up experience through practice, Mao Hailin also humbly learned from technicians. Now he has proficiently mastered the production techniques for more than 10 kinds of vegetables. Relying on this circular economy model, his annual income is more than 100,000 yuan.

Mao Hailin not only walked the road to prosperity by growing vegetables with science and technology, but also used the techniques he had mastered to guide his neighbors in growing vegetables. In vegetable production, whenever anyone asked him for advice on growing problems, he always responded to every request. His mobile phone number became a hotline for vegetable farmers' growing techniques. Nowadays, with just one phone call, Hailin always puts down the work in his hands and rushes to the workers' homes, helping his neighbors solve vegetable-growing technical problems hand by hand. Yet everything Hailin did was free and voluntary. In his words: "I got rich by growing vegetables with science and technology. To help others, they are all neighbors, so why take money?"

Now Hailin not only actively provides help to surrounding vegetable farmers, but also grows fine vegetable seeds into seedlings and supplies his surplus vegetable seedlings to vegetable farmers free of charge. In April last year, in order to help a neighbor, he used all his greenhouses for seedling cultivation, raising more than 20,000 seedlings in total, and sold them to vegetable farmers at a low price, ensuring seedlings for the vegetable base and strongly promoting smooth production.

Under Mao Hailin's selfless help and guidance, surrounding farmers also gradually joined in greenhouse vegetable planting. He taught them one by one, hand by hand. Hard work pays off. With his encouragement, the vegetable area developed considerably. Combining his own vegetable-growing experience over the past two years, after full consultation with the people, and taking into account the advantages of the land and his own personal experience, he mobilized a group of people with good heads and a love of science and technology to start growing vegetables. In the company, 100 mu of vegetable area has now been developed, and more than 50 mu of vegetable greenhouses have been built.