Raising pigs in the mountains opens up a road to prosperity
"Cut me 1 jin of lean meat," "Chop me 1 jin of spare ribs," "Cut me 2 jin of pork belly"... Recently, at the sales site of the Junfeng Yemu ecological pork shop in Yihuang County, many residents rushed to buy the specialty pork. Faced with the booming sales scene, shop owner Chen Dingde happily told reporters that he is a professional pig farmer with 10 years of pig-raising experience, and that he had gradually worked out a model of free-range mountain pig farming from confined pig raising, ultimately winning consumers' favor. During the interview, the reporter followed him into the deep-mountain pig farming base and learned the behind-the-scenes story of his pig-farming entrepreneurship.
To update his breeding techniques, Chen Dingde went everywhere to learn the trade. In 2002, Chen Dingde went to the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences to attend training, learning epidemic prevention, breeding, and pig artificial insemination techniques. In 2005, Chen Dingde returned to Dashankou Village, Shen'gang Township, his hometown, and founded his own pig farm. With solid pig-raising skills, his confined pig raising embarked on a path of large-scale development, growing from the more than 40 pigs he started with to more than 300.
Because Dashankou Village is located at the foot of Junfeng Mountain, right next to the forest, Chen Dingde set his sights on the deep mountains and old forests. "The mountains here are good, the water is good, and the air is good. After the pigs are free-range, the meat will have more of a wild flavor." Chen Dingde decided to try releasing the pigs back to the mountains, letting them root for food and run free in the deep mountain wild forests.
In 2013, drawing on years of pig-raising experience, Chen Dingde crossbred local native sows with fine boars and, through self-breeding and self-raising, cultivated 19 special mountain pigs. During the day, he drove the mountain pigs into the forest to eat wild vegetables and wild grass, and at night drove them home to feed them a small amount of corn and rice bran. Compared with traditionally confined pigs, mountain free-range pigs can enjoy sufficient sunshine, fresh air, and clean water sources, and have never been injected with any pig disease vaccines or other agents, so the pork quality is higher and the nutrition is richer. "The meat is glutinous, refreshing, and fat but not greasy." The pigs sold better and better, and demand exceeded supply in the market.
Having gotten a first taste of success, Chen Dingde's confidence greatly increased, and he decided to expand the scale of free-range farming. Early last year, he contracted 500 mu of mountain land and built pig pens and a breeding farm directly on the mountain, cultivating more than 100 special mountain pigs for free-range raising in the mountain forest. Arriving at Chen Dingde's breeding base, one sees lush trees, babbling streams, crisp birdsong, fresh air, rows of standardized pig pens built along the mountain, and groups of mountain pigs playing and foraging in the forest.
Chen Dingde told reporters that, with the help of the local government, he had already registered the trademark for Junfeng Yemu ecological pigs, and, following the "leading enterprise + base + farmers" model, was driving nearby farmers suitable for pig raising to join the ecological breeding industry. At present, he has already driven 5 nearby villagers to raise mountain pigs, with the total reaching more than 500.