College graduate quits high-paying job to raise chickens in his hometown and eventually becomes wealthy
Xu Rong showing off the chickens he raised at an event
The free-range chickens raised by Xu Rong
"Entrepreneurship is a game: if you lose, lose with all your heart; if you win, win with abandon. Only those who can truly persevere to the end are the big winners in life." This is what Xu Rong, a man born in the 1980s who quit a high-paying job and chose to return home to start a business, often says to himself. Starting from 2009, when he quit his job and returned to his hometown to start a business, he encountered setbacks along the way, but in the end, relying on his tenacious spirit of "perseverance," he finally got what he wanted and achieved entrepreneurial success.
Using microbial fermentation of chicken manure sparked the idea; he quit his job and returned home to start a business
Speaking of the idea of returning home to start a business that first took root, Xu Rong, born in the 1980s, explained that he was originally from Huangjinggou, Weiyuan, Neijiang. He studied biology in university, and during his internship in 2007, he applied for and got a job at a large breeding chicken company.
During that internship, Xu Rong used microbial fermentation of chicken manure to obtain organic fertilizer, and this fertilizer could reduce pollution from farming and turn waste into treasure. In the end, the successful development of the fertilizer was promoted and applied in the field of high-quality vegetable cultivation. It was precisely the inspiration from this research and development process that planted in Xu Rong the idea of organically combining crop farming and livestock farming and pursuing a circular model of integrated planting and breeding.
In 2009, in order to fulfill his idea, Xu Rong resolutely gave up the high-paying job he had already secured, quit, and returned to his hometown to begin preparing to start his own business.
It was not smooth sailing; he encountered many setbacks along the way
After returning to his hometown, Xu Rong began a comprehensive survey, and in the end he decided to raise free-range chickens. At this point, he encountered the first difficulty in his entrepreneurial journey. Because he was starting a business for the first time and was also a recent college graduate, his funds were not plentiful. To solve this problem, he visited and inspected many places, and finally found an abandoned civilian house in Molin, Rong County, Zigong, and decided to use this house to raise chickens. However, the house was dilapidated and leaked rain, and the mountains were damp and cold. This time, Xu Rong truly experienced the hardship of "using the sky as a cover and the ground as a mat."
"Life always has many hardships and difficulties, but fortunately dreams have always accompanied me forward." Xu Rong said that those days were hard and extraordinarily tough, but he felt very happy because life was fulfilling, and everything before his eyes carried dreams and expectations. However, although Xu Rong poured a great deal of effort into this entrepreneurial venture and finally managed with great difficulty to watch the first batch of chickens he raised grow up, because of low social recognition, high prices, and his lack of social experience, his first entrepreneurial venture ultimately failed.
Setting out again; an innovative breeding model finally leads to the road to wealth
The failure of his first entrepreneurial venture shattered Xu Rong's "dream," but he did not give up because of it. In 2010, after reorganizing his thoughts and reflecting, he decided to start over. This time, he explored a new path: signing contracts with farmers, providing chicks himself, and after the chickens grew up, buying them back at a guaranteed price. That year, Xu Rong did not make much money, but from then on he began to grope his way onto a brand-new path.
By 2011, there were more and more breeding households, and Xu Rong began to formulate a model of "the big leading the small, the big managing the small." He formed a poultry cooperative and used a pyramid-like management structure to manage the farmers. He also began cooperating with large supermarkets in Mianyang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Luzhou, and other places, and sales began to grow steadily.
As the scale expanded, Xu Rong returned to Yantai Village, Huangjinggou Town, in his hometown, raised more than 100,000 yuan, contracted 280 mu of barren hills, began planting loquat trees and peach trees, and raised free-range chickens under the trees, establishing his own base and beginning a true circular model. He also formulated reasonable breeding methods, which saved costs and at the same time improved product quality.
It is understood that in recent years, following the industrialized development model of "company + base + farmers" and adopting the full-process service measures of the "six unifications" (unified seed supply, unified epidemic prevention, unified feed formula, unified breeding model, unified brand, unified sales), Xu Rong has led farmers in mountainous areas to use hillsides, orchards, forest land, and barren beaches to establish natural breeding parks, carrying out standardized, large-scale, and intensive breeding of free-range chickens. The high-quality free-range chickens and free-range eggs produced have received unanimous praise from the market. Xu Rong has also cooperated with large restaurants, and today the annual sales of his products have exceeded 5 million yuan.
"In this process, for me, the most important thing is perseverance. Persist in working hard, persist in dreams. In the end, even if I cannot achieve the success I imagined, I will definitely learn a lot from the process." Xu Rong said this. Today, his original dream has come true, and now he has a new dream: to make his branded free-range chickens achieve industrialized development, so that the little free-range chicken flies up onto the branch and becomes a dazzling pearl of Neijiang's future.