The Hyacinth Bean Girl: In All 360 Trades, Every Trade Has Party Members
On a drizzly autumn day in Shanghai, Wang Lina, dressed in an indigo work uniform, was carefully inspecting the hyacinth bean breeding conditions inside the greenhouse of the Shanghai Honggang Green Hyacinth Bean Cooperative.
Five years ago, Wang Lina, a Fudan University graduate, made a decision that surprised everyone - she quit her "high-end" bank job and returned to the fields of her hometown to grow green hyacinth beans alongside her father. Five years later, this 29-year-old young Party member from Pudong, Shanghai has delivered a satisfying result amid all the doubts - she has led 4,180 cooperative members and over 10,000 farming households to grow high-quality green hyacinth beans, with an annual output value exceeding 300 million yuan and a market share of 97% in Shanghai's green hyacinth bean market!
The cooperative is currently introducing a project from the Shanghai Municipal Agricultural Commission - efficient crop rotation of green hyacinth beans and rice. For cooperative members, this model ensures both economic returns and food security, and also improves the soil environment. Wang Lina is inspecting the rice cultivation situation within the cooperative.
"I am now a new-type professional farmer, and also a 'second-generation farmer.'" Wang Lina's tone carried a trace of pride in her self-introduction. Five years ago, many people around her did not understand her choice.
Wang Lina discussing hyacinth bean breeding with cooperative members.
Wang Lina's parents are farmers born and raised in the Pudong area of Shanghai. When she was little, during busy farming seasons, Wang Lina would sit in the fields watching her parents work. A bit older, she would use her summer vacations to participate in hyacinth bean purchasing and other work. At that time, every morning at six o'clock, Wang Lina would take a steelyard scale to the village entrance to set up a collection point, helping her parents with market operations. In 2004, she also led the establishment of the Shanghai Honggang Green Hyacinth Bean Production Cooperative and served as its chairman. Over the years, Wang Lina has had a special affection for farmland and hyacinth beans. After graduating from university, although she entered a bank with stable and respectable work and a generous salary, her heart always worried about her parents busy in the fields. In July 2010, she took the position of Party branch secretary and general manager at the Shanghai Honggang Green Hyacinth Bean Production Cooperative, formally taking over the important responsibility from her father Wang Honggang - leading cooperative members and farming households to open up a new hyacinth bean enterprise together.
Wang Lina monitoring pesticide residue testing of the cooperative's hyacinth beans.
After returning to her hometown, Wang Lina became even busier than when she was at the bank. Selecting seeds, planting experimental fields, purchasing environmentally friendly pesticides, purchasing green hyacinth beans, discussing new variety cultivation with the research team, handling the many daily tasks of the cooperative... This young person born in the 1985-1990 generation was incredibly busy, starting from six o'clock every morning with hyacinth bean purchasing, until late at night - not to mention dressing up, going shopping or watching movies, "she didn't even have time for dating..." Wang Lina recalled.
Wang Lina also has strict requirements regarding food safety: once a farmer's produce fails pesticide residue spot checks, a "one-vote veto" is imposed on that farmer, and their green hyacinth beans are no longer purchased. This strict requirement has also made cooperative members and farmers increasingly value food safety issues, ensuring the quality of green hyacinth beans.
In her new work, the young Wang Lina encountered many difficulties, one of which was dealing with the farmers. The farmers in the cooperative had almost all watched her grow up, and their relationships were relatively harmonious. This was a great help to Wang Lina's work. She also affectionately called them "Big Uncle, Big Mama (Shanghai dialect: auntie)." During the hyacinth bean purchasing process, purchase prices often fluctuated due to natural disasters, unsold agricultural products and other reasons, and farmers' incomes were affected accordingly. "Big Uncle and Big Mama" would also angrily question her: "How can the price drop so sharply all of a sudden? Are you shortchanging us farmers of our hard-earned money?" Sometimes they would even speak harshly. This left Wang Lina at a loss. At that moment, a saying from her father guided her - "The so-called common people means people with a hundred personalities. You should put yourself in their shoes and think more from their perspective."
Wang Lina checking the quality of gift-boxed green hyacinth beans inside the cooperative.
In recent years, Wang Lina has proactively contacted research institutions and universities to carry out variety selection and breeding for the cooperative's existing hyacinth beans. Now, she has established long-term cooperative relationships with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the district agricultural technology extension center and others, conducting crossbreeding and trial planting of 19 varieties of green hyacinth beans. The new "Honggang Third Generation" green hyacinth bean variety cultivated in 2013 showed significant improvements in disease resistance and commercial quality, with yield increasing by 7.38% compared to the "second generation" variety and economic benefits increasing by 1,383 yuan per mu. Taking 2014 as an example, the cooperative's total green hyacinth bean planting area reached 23,000 mu, total output reached 80,500 tons, and total output value reached 373 million yuan, the highest in history. Farmers' incomes have also been increasing year by year, with some large-scale growers earning a net profit of over 200,000 yuan a year. This made Wang Lina happy to see: "Everyone doing well is what truly matters."
Honors achieved by the cooperative and Wang Lina.
In recent years, the cooperative has been developing better and better. The green hyacinth beans produced by the cooperative have a fragrant, glutinous and thick texture, and are deeply welcomed by consumers. But Wang Lina was not satisfied with the status quo. A graduate of Fudan University's marketing major, she had a new idea - to build their own brand and raise brand awareness. So she contacted Shanghai media to promote and publicize "Honggang" green hyacinth beans. In just two years, the brand quickly gained recognition, was rated as a Shanghai Famous Brand Product and Shanghai Famous Trademark, and the cooperative also used this opportunity to broaden its market sales channels. Now, the cooperative's green hyacinth beans have a market share of 97% in Shanghai's green hyacinth bean market, and a market share of over 70% in the East China region. The cooperative has also received titles such as National Demonstration Cooperative of Farmers' Professional Cooperatives and Shanghai Model Cooperative of Farmers' Professional Cooperatives. Wang Lina herself has also won many honors - National Rural Youth Leader in Becoming Wealthy, National Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Harvest Award, Shanghai "March 8th" Red Banner Pacesetter, and many more. In 2012, as a highly educated young female grassroots representative engaged in agricultural production, she was elected as a deputy to the 14th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress. In 2013, she was elected as a delegate to the 11th National Women's Congress. In 2014, she served concurrently as vice chairman of the Pudong New Area Women's Federation.
Facing so many honors, Wang Lina said: "These are all affirmations of my past." Now, this smile-loving young woman born in the 1985-1990 generation has many golden "ideas" - not only to make dried green hyacinth beans, sauce-marinated green hyacinth beans and other deep-processed products, but also to do WeChat business, pushing the cooperative's hyacinth bean products to the whole country and to a broader stage. She wants to lead the folks of her hometown onto the broad road of becoming wealthy through agriculture. At the same time, she also hopes that more urban youth with skills and knowledge can, like her, take root in farmland, devote themselves to new agriculture, and play a greater role on the big stage of urban modern agriculture.