Real Estate Boss Turns Farmer and Becomes a Leader in Helping Farmers Get Rich
Walking into Baotou Nanxing Modern Agriculture Co., Ltd., rows of cherry trees are laden with fruit, and flocks of free-range chickens forage freely... The person behind this charming pastoral scene is none other than company head Zhang Sangenji.
Zhang Sangenji was born into a farming family and was once a locally well-known real estate boss. In the 1990s he founded the private enterprise "Genji Construction Company." After more than a decade of hard work in the construction industry, Zhang Sangenji also became a widely known farmer-entrepreneur and leader in helping people get rich.
In 2012, Zhang Sangenji contracted 2,600 mu of wasteland in Dongba and began his second venture - green planting, original-ecology breeding, and tourism. In October 2013, Zhang Sangenji joined with 32 members and successively transferred 5,475 mu of land to found the Baotou Nanxing Planting and Breeding Professional Cooperative.
"Running a cooperative and doing modern agriculture - how can you do it without knowing how to farm?" As the cooperative grew in scale, Zhang Sangenji specially hired agricultural science experts from the city to serve as technical instructors at the cooperative, and recruited network technicians to help him study agricultural techniques online and look up planting and breeding information. Zhang Sangenji not only studied himself, but also held training classes, mobilizing his wife, son, cooperative members, and nearby farmers to study agricultural techniques together. Over the past few years, through demonstrations of planting with good seeds and good methods, implementation of high-yield research and innovation, scientific use of pesticides, and standardized engineering construction, the cooperative's farming efficiency has risen year after year. It has built a 1,200-mu breeding farm, a 500-mu strawberry picking garden, a 100-mu fruit orchard, and a 100-mu flower garden, and cultivates more than ten kinds of off-season fruits and vegetables including strawberries, dragon fruit, flat peaches, cherries, and five-color cherry tomatoes.
On this basis, Zhang Sangenji registered Baotou Nanxing Modern Agriculture Co., Ltd., which is formed by the joining of the "One Drop of Water Vegetable Planting Farmers' Professional Cooperative, Hexiang Farmers' Professional Cooperative, and Nanxing Sheep Raising Professional Cooperative."
In 2014, the Dongba farm achieved large-scale output: corn reached more than 1 million jin, sunflowers 80,000 jin, sheep grew to more than 300, poultry to more than 1,000, 180 mu of fish ponds were developed, and fish output exceeded 100,000 jin.
Zhang Sangenji, who came from real estate and running enterprises, is good at linking his experience in managing enterprises with the methods of scientific farming to form his own unique "farming handbook."
Clever fertilization through soil testing and formula application. With the guidance and help of the city soil and fertilizer station, Zhang Sangenji gave each field a soil checkup, established soil and fertilizer records, and fertilized according to local conditions, greatly improving fertilizer use efficiency.
To save water, he also learned to adopt drip irrigation under plastic film technology.
No blindness in disease prevention and pest control. No matter how busy production is, as long as the city plant protection station issues pest and disease information, Zhang Sangenji reads every issue and studies it carefully. Over the past few years, Zhang Sangenji, who is good at summarizing and innovating, has promoted and spread his "farming handbook" to surrounding farmers so that everyone benefits together. It is understood that Zhang Sangenji has provided agricultural machinery and unified prevention and control services to more than 20,000 surrounding farming households covering 25,000 mu, saving 26 yuan per mu in costs and increasing output by more than 40 kg. The cooperative's service area achieves annual cost savings and income increases of 800,000 yuan, and farmers' incomes have doubled compared with previous years.
Zhang Sangenji not only became rich through his own ventures, but also did not forget to help his rural neighbors. During the 2013 Spring Festival, Zhang Sangenji gave each of the 29 elderly widowed and childless households in Wangdahan Village 50 jin of rice, 50 jin of flour, and one barrel of oil, expressing his care for the elderly.
In recent years, Zhang Sangenji has opened a new link in his venture chain - an ecological dining project, using ecological chickens from his own breeding garden as the signature dish every day. This year, Nanxing Modern Agriculture carried out in-depth planning for the enterprise's four core industries, combining green planting, ecological breeding, self-service farmhouse entertainment, and brand direct sales to create a "full industry chain" from field to table with full-process control and traceable quality. It invested more than 20 million yuan to build solar greenhouses and explore and try planting subtropical green organic fruits and vegetables such as bananas and papayas. On this basis, it continuously increases investment in scientific research and the introduction of high-tech talent, continues to consolidate long-term cooperative relations with colleges, universities, and research institutes, and seeks new breakthroughs in product research and development.
Once the way of thinking opened up, venture ideas came thick and fast. At present, the 20 flower cellars and the 7,000-square-meter flower exhibition hall of the Nanxing Phase II project are under accelerated construction. After the project is completed, it will provide employment for more than 1,000 surplus laborers from the surrounding area and lead the villagers together onto the road to prosperity and moderate wealth.