Sika deer farming entrepreneurship made him a leader in becoming wealthy
Recently, the office phone of Jiulu Deer Industry in Tongzhou District, Beijing, has become a hotline, with all these calls seeking advice and experience from sika deer farmer Liu Wuquan. This is because on the evening of September 3, CCTV Channel 2's program "Wealth Management Online" broadcast the story of post-80s college student Liu Wuquan's sika deer farming entrepreneurship in Beijing.
In August 2001, Liu Wuquan invested more than 300,000 yuan to build breeding deer sheds and purchase breeding deer, and founded the Jiulu Sika Deer Farm in Panshi City, Jilin Province, his hometown. The farm covers an area of 2 mu, and at that time had only 30 sika deer breeding deer, including 25 female deer and 5 male deer. At present, more than 2,000 sika deer marketed annually are all bought by customers from Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places, and the sika deer market is looking up all the way.
In the second half of this year, Liu Wuquan invested more than 6 million yuan again to build a large-scale sika deer breeding base in Zhangjiawan, Tongzhou District, Beijing, where there are forests and water. The new base covers an area of 20 mu, with 18 newly built deer sheds, and currently has more than 2,500 female deer and more than 200 male deer in stock. Soon after, he also led the establishment of the Jiulu Sika Deer Professional Cooperative, which is expected to market 5,000 sika deer annually, making it China's largest sika deer breeding base at present.
An Incredible Choice
In 2001, Liu Wuquan was about to leave the gates of Jilin Normal University. At this time, he faced a major choice in life: he had long secured a good job in Guangzhou, and as long as he went there, he could sit in an office building, earn a high salary, and become an enviable white-collar worker; on the other hand, the poverty and backwardness of his hometown were vivid before his eyes, and the poverty of his elders, relatives and friends deeply stung him, so he wanted to return home to start a business raising sika deer and lead everyone to become wealthy together.
Persistence in Adversity
"The bitterness in my heart is something no one else can understand." "I have made my final decision. Success or death."
Liu Wuquan's founding of the sika deer business was not a rash act of momentary impulse. He not only carefully considered the advantage of his university study of management that could be used in ecological breeding technology, but also personally traveled to dozens of large sika deer operations across the country for investigation and research. It could be considered that he had done his "homework" seriously. But when it truly came to the threshold of hands-on practice, he was still dumbfounded. Where to buy sika deer feed? How to keep sika deer warm in winter? How to cut sika deer antler? These seemingly simple questions were enough to leave Liu Wuquan, who had no breeding experience at all, overwhelmed.
The difficulties of life and technical barriers gave Liu Wuquan, who had just graduated from university, a good lesson. When he first arrived at the deer farm, the work shed had not been built as agreed, so he could only move his bedding into the deer shed and live and sleep alongside the deer. This kind of life lasted for a full 2 months. This was not even the worst of it. In the following months, the sika deer raised by Liu Wuquan died one after another, and in the end only 9 sika deer remained. Later, after consulting experts, he learned that most of what Liu Wuquan had bought were old deer and sick deer, because without 2-3 years of breeding experience, an outsider simply cannot distinguish the age of deer. After this failure, Liu Wuquan clearly realized: the times are advancing, science and technology are developing, and new diseases are constantly appearing. With only inherent knowledge and traditional experience, it is impossible to meet the requirements of modern sika deer breeding. One must understand technology, so he hired experts from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences at high salaries to teach knowledge such as feed mixing and epidemic prevention, and bought various related deer-raising materials.
With the experience and lesson of the first time, Liu Wuquan borrowed some more money from relatives and friends and purchased some more sika deer. In the second year, the deer finally began to produce antler and give birth to fawns. After 2 years of painstaking operation, returns seemed to be in sight, and Liu Wuquan seemed already to see the dawn of hope. However, a fatal blow came unexpectedly. When the farm was established, he had clearly signed an exclusive sales contract with the manufacturer from whom he bought the deer farm, but when the first batch of antler and fawns came out, the partner refused to honor it. The antler that had once made Liu Wuquan overjoyed in an instant became a heavy burden enough to crush him. Unsellable antler and fawns piled up more and more, and Liu Wuquan, hit by the sudden change, was at his wit's end. Previously, Liu Wuquan had already lost more than 300,000 yuan, and adding the depreciation of the unsellable antler by more than 100,000 yuan, he had truly lost his entire fortune.
Looking at the unsellable antler and fawns, we can imagine Liu Wuquan's burning anxiety. Carrying debts of several hundred thousand yuan, shedding tears as he disposed of the precious fruits of his arduous labor at low prices, and losing more than 100,000 yuan in the process, probably no one can truly understand Liu Wuquan's heartache.
From overcoming all objections to raise funds for entrepreneurship, through dismal operation, to final utter defeat, the worries and predictions of relatives and friends beforehand turned into cruel reality. Almost everyone felt that Liu Wuquan should turn back in time. His parents especially hoped he would change his mind and simply treat it as having spent money to buy a lesson. They knew their son was an honest person, not good at dealing with people, and that being cheated was inevitable. He should properly go to work at an enterprise; he was simply not suited to starting his own business.
But Liu Wuquan was unwilling to admit defeat. Amid friends' strenuous attempts to dissuade him and his family's strong opposition, Liu Wuquan made an astonishing decision. He went home to sell the house and raise funds, to gamble one more time. He secretly took out the property ownership certificate and mortgaged it for farm funds. This move made the already strained family relationship even worse. Beset by troubles inside and outside, and surrounded by opposition on all sides, Liu Wuquan secretly made up his mind!
When Dreams Enter Reality
"I want to raise what others cannot raise, and achieve the goal of a kind of ecological circular breeding."
Heaven does not disappoint the diligent. Liu Wuquan's somewhat tragic persistence brought a turning point to his deer-raising business. The sika deer raised by Liu Wuquan had already begun to show results: the fresh antler yield per head of bred (one-year-old) male deer all reached more than 2 jin, and the fresh antler yield per head of male deer at the sixth sawing and above all reached more than 10 jin. The above indicators all exceeded those of ordinary deer farms in the same industry nationwide.
"Don't look at the high price; many people buy, and demand exceeds supply." Liu Wuquan introduced that because farmers and breeders now all recognize that to develop long term in the sika deer breeding industry, one must have good deer breeds, so that economic benefits can be guaranteed.
Drawing a painful lesson from the first failure, Liu Wuquan no longer focused only on production behind closed doors and began to attach importance to publicity and marketing. He registered trademarks for his sika deer products: the two brands "Jiulu Wang" and "Jiulu." Liu Wuquan's sika deer products gradually opened up sales channels, and his deer farm regained vitality. Liu Wuquan was also able to continue devoting himself to studying deer-raising technology and continuously improving feed formulas. His high-yield sika deer ecological breeding technology became increasingly mature. After successive reports by many news media, the visibility of Liu Wuquan's sika deer and deer products greatly increased. At present, Liu Wuquan's antler selling price has reached 5 yuan/gram, but during festivals it is still in short supply. Many farmers also came attracted by his reputation to learn breeding technology. Now, in addition to concentrating on running the deer farm, Liu Wuquan is also often hired as a lecturer to take the podium and teach, passing on knowledge and answering questions for many specialized households interested in ecological breeding.
Speaking of his ecological breeding technology, marketing and the benefits of the deer farm, Liu Wuquan's consistently calm tone carried a slight ring of strength: "I came to the countryside." His eyes shone with confidence. The currently developed Jiulu Wang and Jiulu brand products such as antler wine, deer penis wine, deer blood wine, spiced venison, and antler capsules are in hot demand, in short supply, and deeply favored by a broad range of customers. The products are sold to Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, and there are already more than 50 agents and franchisees in different forms.
As an entrepreneur who staked everything and pressed forward without hesitation, Liu Wuquan's dream of becoming wealthy undoubtedly succeeded: his research results - the Jiulu Wang and Jiulu series deer products - gained recognition from authoritative institutions and opened up the market. Liu Wuquan did not forget his roots after becoming wealthy and began to develop company-plus-farmer breeding, leading farmers to wealth. In Beijing, he visited all major sika deer breeding bases and supported more than 100 sika deer breeding bases in Huairou, Yanjiao, Tongzhou, Fangshan, Pinggu, Miyun, Yanqing and other places, and passed on to them techniques including sika deer feeding and management technology, sika deer antler harvesting and drying technology, and sika deer fawn feeding and management. One flower alone is not spring; only when a hundred flowers bloom together is the garden full of spring. Liu Wuquan adopted methods such as scientific and technological support and funding support. In order to help farmers quickly master new deer-raising technology, he not only repeatedly paid out of his own pocket to hire experts for scientific breeding training lectures, but also organized technical personnel year-round to visit farmers' homes for guidance. Usually, whenever any farmer encountered a breeding problem, he would come as soon as called. He spent more than 50,000 yuan to buy 1,000 breeding technology manuals and discs, and gave them free to farmers for technical guidance. In 2009 alone, he held 68 breeding training sessions, with more than 2,800 person-times trained. In order to broaden the horizons of farmers across the country, he spent 100,000 yuan in funds to organize farmers to visit the breeding base of the Beijing breeding deer farm for inspection. For farmers lacking funds, he gave strong support through methods such as supplying funds, giving deer seedlings and feed on credit, and follow-up services.