Yingshan Tea Country Chicken in Hubei Gains Capital Wings, Explores a New Path for Targeted Poverty Alleviation
Yingshan Tea Country Chicken Fed on Tea Seeds
Yingshan, as its name suggests, is all mountains. It rejoices because of the mountains, yet it also worries because of them. Its forest coverage rate reaches 70.3 percent, and it is rich in rural tourism and tea resources - that is the joy. Poor transportation, traditional industries unable to gain value-added upgrading, and effective resources difficult to fully develop and utilize - that is the worry.
Having hit the pain point and also knowing the strengths well, how can such a poverty-stricken county turn worry into joy?
Relying on local industrial advantages, the Yingshan County government joined hands with local enterprises to serve up a distinctive "dish" - Tea Country Chicken. This chicken not only has a pair of wings that attract "capital," but has also become one of Yingshan County's targeted poverty alleviation projects.
On October 26, a Jingchu Net reporter walked into Yingshan to see what power this Tea Country Chicken has.
Development Plan for the Yingshan Tea Country Chicken Targeted Poverty Alleviation Project
Enterprises Serve Up Tea Country Chicken, Yet Face Financing Difficulties for Agricultural Projects
Arriving in Yingshan, one can see stretches of tea gardens everywhere winding through the mountains, with village households large and small nestled among the lush green tea groves. Yingshan is a hometown of tea, and also a uniquely blessed original-ecology natural livestock and poultry breeding area.
How to use this resource to develop an industry? At the end of 2010, Jiang Xinhu, harboring a dream of benefiting his hometown, after careful consideration decided to return home to raise chickens, and established Hubei Runhe Agriculture Co., Ltd.
Jiang Xinhu took out the 5 million yuan he had earned from running a company in Lianyungang, contracted 100 mu of tea gardens on a high mountain in Yingshan, and established a Tea Country Chicken breeding base and the Yingshan Tea Country Chicken Breeding Professional Cooperative, forming a comprehensive three-dimensional circular chain integrating planting, breeding, processing, sales, tasting and tourism.
Short-handed, Jiang Xinhu joined with nearby villagers to build chicken coops around the tea gardens. Through free-range methods, the flocks forage in the tea gardens, scratch for grass and eat fresh tea leaves under the tea trees, and catch insects on the tea trees... enabling villagers to raise chickens effortlessly in addition to growing tea.
Mr. Liao Shuhong, a Taiwan, China agricultural expert, stationed at Runhe to guide poverty alleviation
The Yingshan Tea Country Chicken Breeding Professional Cooperative delivers chicks to farming households
Raising tea by the mountains, raising chickens by the tea, increasing income by the chickens. In this way, through a single chicken, an industrial chain unique to Yingshan - the "Tea Country Chicken" chain - was strung together, and at the same time it drove more than 60 local households to increase their income by an average of 30,000 yuan per household per year.
With the Tea Country Chicken, Jiang Xinhu won second prize in the Hubei Postal Savings Cup Youth "Wealth Creation Competition," and the Yingshan Tea Country Chicken also became a product applying for national geographical indication protection. Even so, if an enterprise wants to develop and grow, it still cannot do without an adequate supply of funds.
However, agriculture is an industry of long-term investment, with long production cycles for agricultural products and slow capital recovery. To create the Tea Country Chicken brand, Jiang Xinhu had already invested 10 million yuan successively, which was already all his original assets. How to secure financing became an urgent matter.
"Difficult!" Speaking of the past financing process, Jiang Xinhu complained incessantly. He told reporters that traditional financial institutions mostly favor industries with no risk and high returns, while agricultural projects face multiple risks such as natural and market risks, which differ from the demands of banks. "So we basically cannot get loans."
Government Funds Invested as Shares, Adding Capital Wings to the Chicken
Although Yingshan sits deep in the mountains, it keeps its eyes fixed on capital. In recent years, the Yingshan County Party Committee and County Government have encouraged and supported local enterprises in leveraging the capital market to grow bigger and stronger, promoting industrial transformation and project construction, and have successively issued a series of preferential policies to make the capital market a "powerful booster" for local economic development.
Two years ago, just when Jiang Xinhu was preparing to scale down Tea Country Chicken breeding due to lack of funds, the Yingshan government extended that "visible hand" in the market, supporting Runhe's development through government strength.
On September 30 this year, Yingshan County Development Investment Co., Ltd. and Hubei Runhe Agriculture Co., Ltd. signed an equity investment agreement at Wuhan Optics Valley Capital Building. Yingshan County Development Investment Company contributed 3 million yuan, subscribing to 500,000 shares of Runhe Agriculture at 6 yuan per share, becoming a shareholder holding 5 percent of Runhe Agriculture's equity. Moreover, because it took the form of a local government state-owned investment enterprise investing in and taking shares in a local private listed enterprise, it pioneered the province and even the country's regional equity market.
In the view of Tian Hongguang, head of Yingshan County, this 3 million yuan not only brings valuable working capital to the enterprise; more important than the funds, it demonstrates the local government's support for and confidence in the private enterprise in which it has invested and taken shares, and is an important endorsement and credit enhancement given by the government to the enterprise.
As a result, the Yingshan Tea Country Chicken gained a pair of wings called "capital." It not only flew out of the mountains, but also attracted phoenixes. To help Yingshan establish an industrial fund, Hubei Xin Haitian Capital Group has entered Yingshan Urban Development and Construction Advisory Co., Ltd. with a 60 percent controlling stake, jointly building a new financing platform with the Yingshan County government.
What has the Tea Country Chicken brought to local villagers?
At present, this chicken has also become one of Yingshan County's important targeted poverty alleviation projects.
After Runhe Agriculture was listed on the fourth board at the Wuhan Equity Custody Exchange Center, due to strong support from the local government and attention from many parties, its corporate governance was standardized and its production and operation level continued to improve. To help more villagers escape poverty, with government support, Jiang Xinhu explored and created the model of "company + base + cooperative + village collective + specialized households + poor households."