Halik Leads Villagers onto the Road to Common Prosperity

On November 5, Halik sent photos of red dates via WeChat on his phone while negotiating with out-of-town buyers.

On November 5, the wind was chilly outside, but the red date sales market in Tograklik Township, Qiemo County was bustling with people. Farmers were busy sorting, screening and packing red dates, and buyers came and went in an endless stream. "This year the cooperative's red date sales are especially good. Every day customers keep calling and messaging on WeChat to place orders. Even with the red date processing plant running at full capacity, supply still falls short of demand," Halik Ubul, head of the Hanbag Red Date Farmers' Cooperative in Tograklik Township, Qiemo County, told this writer.

Halik, 33, is a well-known local red date sales broker in Qiemo County. In 2010, Halik was the first locally to open a dried fruit shop, and he also registered a trademark for his red dates. Relying on his willingness to endure hardship, his love of learning and his understanding of the market, Halik's business grew bigger and bigger. Whenever he had free time, Halik traveled to inland areas to study business management. In March 2013, Halik invested more than 1 million yuan to register and establish the Hanbag Red Date Farmers' Cooperative in Qiemo County, bringing in more than 130 growers from surrounding townships to join the cooperative by contributing their jujube orchards as shares, and training more than 60 local young people to form a red date technical service team to provide full-process services for cooperative members. With support from governments at all levels, Halik also set up a red date processing plant, and the red dates are sold uniformly after packaging. As the scale of operations continued to expand, Halik also became the local "Red Date King." Last year the cooperative sold more than 300 tons of red dates, with sales of more than 4.2 million yuan and net income of more than 900,000 yuan.

Next, Halik plans to expand the scale of the cooperative, achieve deep processing of red dates, increase the added value of red dates, and at the same time bring in more farmers to participate, guiding everyone to change the traditional sales model and form an "Internet + farmers' cooperative" production and sales model, so that villagers can embark on the road to prosperity under the cooperative's leadership.

On November 5, Halik (left) and employees stacked newly purchased red dates together.

On November 5, Halik (left) and college-student employee Gulayimhan Sawur were jointly setting up a Taobao shop.