How Potato Farming Created a Miracle of Wealth

Guo Daquan, Party branch secretary and chairman of the Minwang Potato Professional Cooperative in Xihe County, Longnan City, Gansu Province, carries a wealth of potato business knowledge in his heart and has become a legendary figure in potato-driven prosperity in Longnan, Gansu.

Potatoes grown in Xihe County are full of starch, sweet and delicious. However, due to a lack of commercial awareness, apart from being eaten as a staple food, the commercial value of Xihe potatoes had long gone undeveloped. In the autumn of 2006, Guo Daquan, who was in the potato purchasing business, under the guidance of the municipal and county policies on developing specialty industries, teamed up with 4 like-minded people from his village to register and establish the Xihe County Heba Town Potato Professional Association, turning the previously simple and scattered purchasing into large-scale purchasing. But within a few days, Guo Daquan discovered that the mere 5 warehouses were simply unable to hold the volume of potatoes being purchased; large quantities of potatoes piled in the open quickly turned green and rotted, posing a serious threat to the association's development. So the few of them pooled funds to build a thousand-ton potato storage cellar, but unexpectedly, due to a lack of technology and experience, the storage cellar, which cost more than 200,000 yuan, collapsed in a torrential rainstorm. "This plunged me to the freezing point of my potato venture. Not only were all the carefully cultivated potato seedlings crushed to death, but the hearts and hopes of the few of us were crushed as well. That year I stayed shut up at home lying around for a whole month." Speaking of those days, Guo Daquan still feels a lingering fear.

During those drowsy days, Guo Daquan asked himself more than once: should he give up and find another way out, or keep taking the plunge? Guo Daquan, who had dealt with potatoes for many years, chose the latter, holding an unshakable belief in Xihe potatoes and their quality. In his own words, "On this land of Xihe, there is nothing that can rival potatoes for developing a specialty industry," and it was precisely this determination that ultimately made Guo Daquan what he is today. With the help of the county and township governments and relevant departments, Guo Daquan, relying on sheer tenacity, strength and a positive, enterprising drive, while urging association members to continue contributing funds and carry out production self-rescue, actively sought agricultural project funds to develop the potato business he loved. With 30 tons of cement coordinated and transported by the city and county, he raised funds on his own to repair the storage cellar, and at the same time sought loans to purchase potatoes. Despite everyone's fear of another failure, he purchased more than 1000 tons of potatoes and sold them at a high price the following spring, not only paying off all debts but also making a profit of more than 200,000 yuan. Guo Daquan and his potato association earned their first pot of gold since starting the business, and from then on embarked on a path of developing a big industry based on the humble potato, never to turn back. In 2007, Guo Daquan expanded the office space, built insect-proof net sheds, constructed a potato demonstration park, built a new farmers' science and technology training school, and in one move registered and established the Minwang Potato Professional Cooperative. "The cooperative began to get on track in 2007." This is how Guo Daquan describes his entrepreneurial experience: "This is also thanks to our government and the government's good policies. Without the help and support of the government and relevant departments, the cooperative would not have developed to where it is today!"

At present, the Minwang Potato Professional Cooperative has grown into a first-class farmers' professional cooperative in the city and one that is well known across the province. While strengthening office conditions, it has hardened more than 7000 sq m of grounds, built 488 m of walls and fencing, completed more than 2000 sq m of market landscaping, and at the same time built a new-product technology exhibition hall of more than 2000 sq m, a 900 sq m scattered-trader transaction shed (steel-frame greenhouse) and 1 cluster of ten-thousand-ton virus-free seed potato storage cellars. It has built a production line with an annual capacity of 10 million virus-free potato pre-elite minitubers, a 1200-mu original seed net-shed production base, a 4020-mu first-level virus-free seed potato breeding base, and a 6160-mu second-level virus-free seed potato base, which can guarantee full coverage of virus-free seed potatoes across the county's 400,000 mu of fields, and has applied for certification of 150,000 mu of green potato production area. It has formed a Guangfeng agricultural machinery service team with 10 drivers and 172 units (sets) of agricultural machinery, and has registered and established the Longnan City Minle Seed Industry Company, forming an industrial service system of "farmers + cooperative + buyers" and "a one-stop chain of production, processing and sales," smoothly completing the gorgeous transformation from a small operation of 5 people at the start to a large farmers' professional cooperative with more than 4000 members that directly drives more than 10,000 surrounding households, truly making the cooperative a comprehensive demonstration site for potato seed breeding, storage and sales, a demonstration site for agricultural science and technology extension, a demonstration site for science and technology training and internships in agricultural industry development, a demonstration site for agricultural mechanization services, and a demonstration site where a professional association drives farmers to develop industry, becoming a distinctive and prominent banner of specialty industry development in Xihe County. The improved potato seeds bred by the Minwang Potato Professional Cooperative quickly covered all of Xihe County, and while being sold to all counties and districts of Longnan, they are also sold to Shanxi, Henan and other places. In October 2011, the Xihe potatoes bred by the Minwang Potato Professional Cooperative were exhibited at the 9th China International Agricultural Trade Fair and won unanimous favor from Chinese and foreign exhibitors. Guo Daquan is good at doing ideological and political work with his employees. He said: turning potatoes from "staple food" into "commodities" is only the first step in adding value to potatoes. When potatoes can also be dressed like apples and sold at the good price of "bagged apples," that will be truly adding value, that will be truly a specialty agricultural product. While continuously strengthening ties with the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences and inviting experts and technical personnel from the academy at the appropriate time to help solve technical problems, Guo Daquan has stepped up training of the cooperative's technical personnel, actively cultivating skilled talent in breeding, propagation and various other areas, and through them provides unified technical services to farmers, achieving the "four unifications" of "supplying seeds, supplying agricultural materials, technical guidance and buy-back at a guaranteed price," greatly boosting the production enthusiasm of planting farmers. "In the past, a jin of potatoes could only sell for one or two mao, which made us feel very disheartened! Since the cooperative was established, the cooperative is responsible for distributing seeds and providing technical guidance, and the average yield per mu has reached more than 4000 jin, two or three times the previous income." Said Guo Wanchang, a large-scale potato grower. At the same time, in light of actual development, the cooperative has proposed seven maximization development goals: "industrial scale, land transfer, agricultural mechanization, market operation as enterprises, industrial quality assurance, benefit to the people and prosperity for the people, and institutionalized management." It treats cooperative members as benefactors and the broad masses of farmers as family, makes full use of the sales channels it already possesses, relies on expert and technical personnel, and actively cultivates a famous, high-quality brand of Xihe potato seed, using the "famous-brand effect" of improved seeds and large-scale operations to drive more people to get rich quickly.

"The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed building a new type of agricultural management system combining intensification, specialization, organization and socialization, which has brought us greater development opportunities for developing professional cooperatives, and we have an even greater obligation to make Xihe's potato industry bigger and stronger. Although the cooperative has achieved some results, we still must work hard." This is how Guo Daquan looks forward to the future of the potato professional cooperative. In 2008, Guo Daquan was named one of the Top Ten Outstanding Youths of Longnan City. In 2009, he was named a Gansu Provincial Rural Youth Leader in Getting Rich and the 7th National Rural Youth Leader in Getting Rich. In 2012, Guo Daquan, as a county-level people's congress representative and CPPCC member, was elected as a representative to attend the 12th Gansu Provincial People's Congress and became a candidate for "Touching Longnan - 2012 Top Ten News Figures." In 2013, the No. 1 Central Document made clear to Guo Daquan the direction of the cooperative's development. With the help of the county Party committee, the government and relevant departments, he focused on restructuring the modern agricultural management "1+5" model of a "potato joint general cooperative supported by five major systems: land transfer services, public brand services, expert technical services, socialized agricultural labor services and agricultural financial services." In 2013, Guo Daquan was elected chairman of the Xihe County Potato Joint General Cooperative. Through land transfer it achieved asset restructuring and cooperation, created the Qiqiao potato brand, and highlighted the synergy of resources; it hired an expert technical service team to enhance scientific and technological innovation; it formed a mechanized service team for unified allocation of agricultural materials to avoid labor shortages and heavy physical input; and it developed rural financial services to form mutual aid of social funds. The connotation-rich Xihe County Potato Joint General Cooperative has already begun operations, demonstrating the vitality of great cooperation, great service, great synergy and great development. In May 2015, Guo Daquan was selected as a provincial model worker. [Longnan Municipal Party Committee Reporting Group]