A shepherd raises sheep well and leads his fellow villagers to prosperity together
Wang Fujiong, a villager from Group 9 of Yushi Village, Jijia Township, Qianwei County, worked away from home in his early years, learned the technique of making braised dishes, and started his own business in braised dishes and noodle processing. He earned the "first bucket of gold" in his life, bought an apartment in the county town, and his family lived a comfortable and easy life.
However, not content with the status quo, he then went into the duck-raising and dog-raising industries, but unexpectedly lost everything. He could only part with what he loved and sold his apartment, once again embarking on the arduous entrepreneurial path of starting from zero. Later, he discovered that the sheep-raising industry had many business opportunities, so he firmly kept going and once again welcomed a spring of development. Today, he has established a cooperative to provide farmers with services such as technology and sales, leading villagers to jointly develop the black goat industry. Wang Fujiong said his dream is to --
Just after New Year's Day, the author met Wang Fujiong in Group 9 of Yushi Village, Jijia Township, Qianwei County. When it comes to raising sheep, he is quite well known locally; the villagers all call him the "shepherd," and when talking about his entrepreneurial story, people are even more eager to talk about it.
Working away from home to earn the "first bucket of gold"
The children of poor families take charge early. In July 1990, 17-year-old Wang Fujiong graduated from junior high school. Facing a poor family environment, Wang Fujiong did farm work at home for 3 years before going out to work.
In November 1994, Wang Fujiong went to a company in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and became a braised-products technician. Because he was diligent and willing to work, eager to learn and make progress, he won the recognition of the company's leaders, and his monthly salary was more than 500 yuan. "Discontent is the wheel of upward progress." In the first half of 1997, Wang Fujiong left the company and began to start his own business. He successively moved through Nanjing, Wuxi, Nantong, Yangzhou, Jiangdu, Yancheng, and other places, doing business in braised dishes and noodle processing, and earned the "first bucket of gold" in his life: 500,000 yuan. During the Spring Festival of 2006, he spent more than 100,000 yuan to buy an apartment in Qianwei County town, allowing his family to live a comfortable life.
The road of entrepreneurship is full of hidden currents everywhere. In the spring of 2007, not willing to live an ordinary life, Wang Fujiong invested more than 100,000 yuan to build a duck farm with a capacity of more than 3,000 ducks, but ended up losing everything. Helpless, he had to part with what he loved and sold the apartment in the county town at a low price; at the same time, he also invested more than 8,000 yuan to raise meat dogs, but it still ended in failure with a loss.
Becoming a "shepherd" and welcoming a spring of development
"When God closes one door, he will surely open another window for you." The earlier failures did not stop Wang Fujiong's steps forward or his entrepreneurial passion. In the second half of 2007, he began buying young sheep and adult sheep to resell, and discovered many business opportunities in it: external demand for mutton sheep was large, while the local sheep resources were in short supply, making it difficult to buy sheep; the local abundant grass resources could solve the feed problem for mutton sheep, so raising sheep was surely promising.
Heaven rewards the diligent, and opportunity always favors those who are prepared. In the early spring of 2008, Wang Fujiong used part of his remaining funds to buy 5 ewes and embarked on the road of becoming rich by raising sheep. At the very beginning, as a "layman," he encountered problems such as not understanding technology and financial difficulties, but these "roadblocks" did not make him retreat or stop. He went to bookstores to buy books and study on his own, and vaccinated and treated the sheep for diseases; he borrowed money from relatives and friends to solve the problem of development funds. Through hard work, by the end of 2009, Wang Fujiong's sheep raising finally reached scale and showed improvement; the previous 5 ewes had become 50 sheep.
If the quality of the mutton is to be guaranteed, grass must become its staple food. As the scale expanded, grass could no longer meet the needs of the sheep. In 2011, Wang Fujiong contracted 25 mu of land from surrounding villagers to plant Taiwan sweet elephant grass and ryegrass, solving the feed problem for the sheep; at the end of 2013, Wang Fujiong learned from a master and learned how to slaughter sheep, letting his wife sell mutton every day at the Luocheng Town farmers' market while he raised and managed the sheep at home, and the "one-stop" industrial chain of raising, purchasing, and selling gradually took shape. In 2014, Wang Fujiong sold more than 300 small breeding ewes, small breeding rams, and small commercial sheep, with income of about 200,000 yuan; he purchased and sold more than 1,000 commercial sheep, with income of more than 50,000 yuan; and he currently had more than 400 breeding ewes, small lambs, breeding rams, and meat sheep on hand.
Establishing a cooperative to lead villagers to prosperity
"A single flower blooming is not spring; a hundred flowers in full bloom make spring fill the garden." The scenes of hesitation, confusion, and struggle on the entrepreneurial road made the now-prosperous Wang Fujiong dare not forget them. The scenes of rural cadres giving policy support often surfaced before his eyes, and the villagers' selfless gift of abandoned land moved him greatly. "In an era of mass innovation and mass entrepreneurship, I have an unshirkable duty to lead villagers out of poverty and into a good life." Wang Fujiong understood that the Party's call for the fight against poverty had been sounded, and to realize the splendid transformation from "blood-transfusion" poverty alleviation to "blood-making" poverty alleviation, as the prosperity leader of a city-listed poverty-stricken village, he had a responsibility on his shoulders.
In March 2014, Wang Fujiong established the Jijia Township Heishan Black Goat Breeding Professional Cooperative, demonstrating and driving farming households to raise black goats and become prosperous together. Now, 17 farming households have joined the cooperative, and the scale is gradually expanding. "I used to raise white goats from other places, but their disease resistance was poor and the returns were not good, so I eliminated them all. Since joining the cooperative to raise black goats, I now have more than 100 breeding goats and an annual income of more than 100,000 yuan, much better than working for others." Duan Dabing, a farmer from Group 1 of Xinmin Village, Yuping Township, praised the benefits of raising sheep without end. Seeing that Wang Fujiong had made a "sheep" fortune, the villagers of Yushi Village also followed suit. With his technical support, the whole village had raised more than 900 black goats.
How should farmers who lack funds and technology raise sheep to escape poverty and become rich? Wang Fujiong "prescribed the right medicine" and offered a good remedy -- the foster-raising model, avoiding farmers' financial and technical risks. "Raising more black goats by myself would not leave enough time and energy, but the foster-raising model can do it." Wang Fujiong introduced, "I provide the young sheep and solve problems such as technology, veterinary medicine, and sales; the farming households provide land, labor, and management; we implement a minimum protective purchase price of 10 yuan/jin, and the profit-sharing ratio is 70 percent for the farming households and 30 percent for me." At present, there are already two large foster-raising households, Luo Yun from Group 3 of Yuping Village, Yuping Township, and Zhou Guanghe from Group 4 of Zhugen Village, Gongping Township, and both have raised more than 30 black goats.
"The township and village have given me a lot of help, and I must be a good leader in becoming rich." When the author asked Wang Fujiong why he wanted to lead the villagers to prosperity, he was full of emotion. "From 2012 to now, the township has given a total of 20,000 yuan in industrial development support funds to help me expand the scale. Township and village cadres also actively helped me coordinate farmers' abandoned land and offered suggestions and ideas for industrial development." Wang Fujiong said that next, he would take "cultivating large households, demonstrating and driving, and comprehensively promoting" as his development approach, and drive farming households to raise black goats and become prosperous.