Returning Home to Start a Business: He Gave Up a High-Paying Job and Successfully Built Wealth

After years of struggling away from home, Luo Jianguo originally had a stable job, but in the end he chose to return to his hometown, Gufo Village in Rensha Town, and start from scratch in livestock farming and crop cultivation. Getting started was not easy. Luo Jianguo overcame one difficulty after another, and in the end, he succeeded, and he would also lead the villagers onto the path to prosperity.

Keeping His Hometown in His Heart, Giving Up a High-Paying Job

Luo Jianguo's family was originally not well off, and his parents made a living by farming. In 1994, in order to ease the family's financial burden, Luo Jianguo, who had studied for two years in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, gave up his schooling and chose to start working early, finding a job at a certain work unit in Chengdu.

Although this job was stable, the income was limited, which was far from what Luo Jianguo had originally pursued. After much careful consideration, he submitted his resignation. But this move did not get his parents' support; they thought such a decision was too foolish, but Luo Jianguo always insisted on his own decision. He believed he could carve out a world of his own.

At that time, many villagers in his hometown chose to go out to work. Following this wave of migrant labor, Luo Jianguo came to a shoe factory in Fujian Province to work. Every day, Luo Jianguo worked diligently and conscientiously, and he was very strict with himself, never making a mistake in his work. He also used his spare time to constantly recharge himself and improve his theoretical level and technical skills.

As time went on, Luo Jianguo not only gained the recognition of his colleagues but also won the appreciation of his leaders. In 2007, he went from being an ordinary grassroots shoe factory worker to a management staff member.

Later still, an opportunity to be promoted to deputy factory director appeared before Luo Jianguo, and this also meant he would have a stable, high-income job. But the decision he made surprised everyone: he chose to return to Gufo Village in Rensha Town, Fengdu County. He said that he was a native of Gufo Village and had always had a heart for going home, and besides, there were elderly people at home who needed care.

Farming Failure, Rising Again Through Crop Cultivation

In 2010, Luo Jianguo served as village director of Gufo Village. It was also at this time that he began to explore the path of agricultural development. In order to improve his technical level, under the organization of the county poverty alleviation office, Luo Jianguo went many times to places such as the main urban area of Chongqing to study.

After Luo Jianguo returned to his hometown, he put all the savings from working away into livestock farming. His family raised quite a few ducks, geese, and also goats. But due to various reasons, in the end they all lost money.

In the face of failure, Luo Jianguo did not become discouraged. After some market research, in 2013 he began trying to grow red-fleshed pomelo, with a planting area reaching 150 mu. Whenever he encountered any confusion in cultivation, Luo Jianguo would look up information online himself or consult relevant experts to solve it.

The red-fleshed pomelo has yellow peel, bright red flesh, is juicy and easy to chew, and is mostly harvested from October to December. Now, it is once again the season when the pomelos ripen. "This pomelo tree can probably yield sixty to seventy jin, and the current retail price is 5 yuan per jin, so it can sell for at least 300 yuan. At most, the fruit from one pomelo tree can sell for four or five hundred yuan." In Luo Jianguo's view, these pomelo trees are now all his money trees.

"In the first two years, the investment was relatively large: organic fertilizer, labor costs, care costs, and so on. The cost per mu was about 10,000 yuan, and it will become less and less in the future, and management will also be more convenient," Luo Jianguo said.

Leading by Example, Getting Rich Together with the Villagers

In addition to growing red-fleshed pomelo, Luo Jianguo also grew button mushrooms, strawberries, and various vegetables. Now, his annual income is more than 300,000 yuan, and his family has also built a new house.

As village director, Luo Jianguo well understood that to change the poverty situation of the entire village, merely increasing his own family's income was far from enough; he also had to lead the villagers together onto the path to prosperity.

Villager Li Zubi is a worker Luo Jianguo has employed long term, earning 80 yuan per day in wages, which comes to more than 2,000 yuan a month. "In the past, I did farm work at home, and in a whole year I earned only a few thousand yuan. Now my income has reached over 10,000 yuan." Li Zubi told the reporter that she was almost 60 years old, and the children in her family had all gone out to work. Her income was enough for the couple's daily expenses, and she could still save quite a bit of money.

Like Li Zubi, more than 10 other villagers also work in Luo Jianguo's fields.

"The fields cannot lack people, and this solves the problem of some surplus labor in the village and can appropriately increase their income," Luo Jianguo said.

Under Luo Jianguo's leadership, villager Luo Jianxia grew more than 30 mu of button mushrooms and other vegetables, and villager Wang Youmin also grew more than 10 mu of button mushrooms. Whenever they encountered problems they did not understand in cultivation, they would ask Luo Jianguo for advice.

Luo Jianguo believed that Gufo Village in Rensha Town could definitely be "completely transformed," and the villagers would also gradually step onto the path to prosperity.