The entrepreneurial dream-chasing path of a post-90s girl from Luan County, Tangshan, Hebei

In the depths of winter, vegetation withers, but inside the Sisters Vegetable Garden in Leizhuang Town, Luan County, a different scene unfolds. The greenhouses are full of spring vitality, with tomatoes ripening from green to red growing vigorously, and cucumbers with blossoms still attached and prickly skin crisp and tender... Some workers are busy harvesting, some are busy raising seedlings, and some are busy grafting, presenting a bustling scene. Speaking of this, one cannot help but mention Liu Chao, the leader of fruit and vegetable greenhouse planting.

Liu Chao is 26 years old this year and a native of Luan County, Hebei. Like many girls, when she first graduated, Liu Chao chose to work in her hometown, earning only a few hundred yuan a month. After a busy year, she had little money left in hand. Faced with this situation, Liu Chao, unwilling to remain poor, felt waves of emotion rise in her heart. "I can't keep going on so gloomily. Others are starting businesses, and I want to start a business too! If others can live prosperous lives, I can't stay poor my whole life!" Speaking of starting a business, it is easier said than done. Although Liu Chao had ideals in her heart, how to begin left her very confused. At this critical moment, an accidental class reunion opened up her thinking. At that reunion, a classmate who had started a business and become a small boss treated everyone, and during casual chat mentioned that organic vegetables were especially popular in big cities and quite expensive. Although he did not worry about money now, it was very hard to buy them in his hometown. It was this reunion that first introduced Liu Chao to the term "organic vegetables." She went home and looked up information online, discovering that organic vegetables, which looked almost no different from ordinary vegetables, actually sold for several times the price. Immediately, she felt business opportunities had arrived.

After setting her direction, Liu Chao began the first step of entrepreneurship. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. In the early days of starting her business, apart from a few thousand yuan she had saved herself, she was practically penniless. At that time, apart from her husband, no one believed she could succeed, and even fewer people were willing to lend her money. She went to the rural credit cooperative to apply for a loan, but because she had no collateral or guarantee, the credit cooperative would not grant it. Liu Chao could only scrape together and borrow from here and there, finally raising 50,000 yuan. To save costs, she was unwilling to spend money hiring workers, and did everything herself. Building greenhouses, buying seeds, raising seedlings, preparing the land, buying plastic film - from small tasks like how to tie each wire, to large matters like the structure of the greenhouse area - she did everything personally. In this way, Liu Chao worked day and night for a month, and the first 26 greenhouses were successfully completed, planted with organic vegetables and fruits such as cucumbers, peppers, fresh peaches, and tomatoes.

Without technical knowledge or experience, she learned from books, from neighbors, and from peers. Whenever the town held greenhouse vegetable production training classes, she never missed a single one, listening carefully and taking detailed notes. Thanks to her meticulous management, the vegetables grew exceptionally well. That autumn, a restaurant operator came to visit the park and immediately signed a long-term purchasing contract. Over the year, she earned a full 100,000 yuan. Looking at her "first bucket of gold," her confidence and courage multiplied.

With this initial success, Liu Chao's entrepreneurial vision became broader, and the park's planning became more scientific and reasonable. Over several years, following the concepts of high yield, high quality, high efficiency, ecology, and safety, she divided the Sisters Vegetable Garden into three parks for construction: First, the high-efficiency agricultural planting area. Covering 130 mu, it has completed 90 high-standard fruit and vegetable greenhouses and put them into use. The main agricultural products include cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, peppers, and various other fruits and vegetables. Through experimentation and demonstration, a set of standardized and normalized methods suitable for local protected fruit and vegetable production has been formed, achieving increased yield and high quality of agricultural products. Second, the basic agricultural planting area. Covering 120 mu, the grain crops are mainly corn. It uses organic biological decomposed fertilizer, promotes the application of new varieties, increases per-unit yield, and raises farm income, realizing the application of large-scale mechanization, producing green and safe grain, and ensuring the supply of local bulk grain. Third, the tourism and leisure agriculture area. Covering 70 mu, it has a special fruit tree picking area, a farmhouse dining area, and so on, making full use of the existing natural landscape to form an environmental landscape that is "viewable, tour-able, and livable," developing special tourism combining experiential agriculture and sightseeing agriculture. With "green and healthy" as its concept, it develops the ecological tourism and leisure industry.

At present, the park has transferred 1,000 mu of land, built 100 high-standard fruit and vegetable greenhouses, 1 vegetable packaging workshop, and 1 biogas digester of 1,000 cubic meters. It is a cooperative unit designated by the Provincial Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs and has technical cooperation with experts from many countries including the United States and Israel. The greenhouses widely adopt Interfim technology introduced from Israel. Products such as fruits and vegetables have successfully passed national-level green food certification, establishing a brand of green, ecological, and organic. The park has also developed into a comprehensive agricultural demonstration park integrating special breeding, special planting, agricultural product research and development, new energy construction, and modern logistics. Relying on the "Internet Plus" platform, it successfully established sales networks in the Tangshan Hehuakeng Market and surrounding large supermarkets, opening up product sales channels. In 2013, the Jixiang Agricultural Cooperative established based on the park was rated a national-level standard demonstration cooperative; in 2014, the Sisters Vegetable Garden in Leizhuang Town, Luan County passed inspection by the Ministry of Agriculture and was rated a national-level vegetable standard demonstration park.

Liu Chao did not forget her fellow villagers after becoming wealthy. Starting in 2012, through the "company + base + farmers" model, she absorbed more than 60 surplus rural laborers for employment, trained 70 rural women leaders in scientific and technological wealth creation each year, and at the same time radiated and drove 300 rural women households to engage in protected agricultural production, effectively driving the development of the rural economy in the local and surrounding areas.

As a typical representative of entrepreneurial wealth creation, Liu Chao finally realized her organic vegetable dream, and she herself gained widespread recognition from society. Starting in 2012, she continuously served as president of the Vegetable Association of the Luan County Women's Federation, and was repeatedly rated as a municipal-level March 8th Red Banner Pacesetter and a Women's Entrepreneurship Star.