Finding a fortune in sea buckthorn, Wang Honglin's life keeps getting better and better

From accidentally seeing on TV that sea buckthorn held huge business opportunities, to going alone to a sea buckthorn nursery base in Beijing to start learning basic techniques, to now establishing Liaoning Ji Zhi Chun Sea Buckthorn Technology Co., Ltd., Tieling County Honglin Sea Buckthorn Professional Planting Cooperative, and Changchun Lv Zhi Yuan Sea Buckthorn Research Institute, Wang Honglin took less than ten years to complete the transformation from a laid-off worker of PetroChina to a leader in helping farmers get rich.

It is winter now, and against the backdrop of snow, the golden berries on the sea buckthorn trees are brilliant, making a beautiful sight in the fields. Recalling the days when he persisted in planting sea buckthorn, Wang Honglin was filled with emotion. In 2000, Wang Honglin was laid off from PetroChina, and "finding something to do" had always been his idea. In 2006, he accidentally saw on TV that sea buckthorn was a very good project. He went to the Sea Buckthorn Management Center of the Ministry of Water Resources in Beijing for a detailed investigation, and learned planting techniques at a nursery base. In 2008, Wang Honglin returned to Tieling and contracted 38 mu of mountain land in Qingshui Village, Zhonggu Town, Kaiyuan City, starting his entrepreneurial journey. Because of insufficient funds in the early stage of starting the business, he owed a loan for large-scale sea buckthorn seedling planting, and he once sold a storefront house to cover the shortfall. "I must persevere; I have only just paid the tuition. Treating something as a career is very happy, and I want to make stretch after stretch of barren mountains lush and green."

Sea buckthorn trees are very suitable for growing in sandy areas, sloping land, and cold northern regions. They tolerate barren soil, drought, and extensive management, and can also survive in saline-alkali land. They have the ability to improve the ecological environment. Sea buckthorn fruit, leaves, and seeds are the basic raw materials for producing health products, medicines, food, and cosmetics. In 2010, when Tieling County Honglin Sea Buckthorn Professional Planting Cooperative was first established, farmers did not understand sea buckthorn planting, so Wang Honglin went to find party committee secretaries and village secretaries in various townships to mobilize them, trying to get villagers to plant it. The initial 23 members were spread across Tieling, Kangping, Faku, and other places. A farmer in Dadianzi Town, Tieling County, took out 100 mu of farmland for trial planting and tasted the sweetness of getting rich that very year. Wang Honglin did the math: compared with growing crops such as soybeans and corn, the economic benefit of planting sea buckthorn is 4-9 times that of ordinary crops.

Now, the cooperative has 417 member households, with a planting area of 4,000 mu in three districts and six counties in the Tieling area, and nearly 17,000 mu across the three northeastern provinces. At present, the company mainly has friendly relations with two major manufacturers in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang, and the sea buckthorn berries grown by members are sold directly to these two places for deep processing.

Originally, sea buckthorn was a summer fruit and an autumn fruit, with a short picking period and difficult harvesting, and it had shortcomings such as being labor-intensive, time-consuming, and prone to rotting. Now, planting sea buckthorn harvested in winter allows picking at the end of December; by knocking with sticks, a single tree can be completely picked in only 3-5 minutes. In order to delay the ripening period of sea buckthorn fruit, Wang Honglin and the research institute staff studied gene pairing for new varieties and successfully improved the seedlings. The new variety has thick fruit skin and large fruit. Sea buckthorn leaves are also treasures, but the picked leaves will rot if not processed within 2 hours. Wang Honglin learned tea-making techniques elsewhere and opened a small tea factory, further increasing farmers' economic income; in a year, 3 tons of tea cakes can be made. This year, two sea buckthorn picking gardens in the Tieling area opened to the public, attracting tourists from Dalian, Tonghua, and other places to come and pick.

Recently, Wang Honglin received a large seedling order from Nong'an County, Changchun City, with an initial experimental field of 800 mu for the sea buckthorn planting project. Wang Honglin also tried selling sea buckthorn in the form of e-commerce on Wohui.com, and the sales situation looks promising.