Liuzhou: Couple breeds livestock and grows crops deep in the mountains to lead farmers toward prosperity

On October 27, at Liang Qingfeng's farm, farmer Wei Hui is feeding the turkeys.

On October 27, Liang Qingfeng works in the free-range chicken breeding area.

Four years ago, Liang Qingfeng and his wife, residents of Liuzhou city, Guangxi, used the million yuan in savings they had earned through years of hard work to come to Tong village, Taiyangshan town, Liunan district, and contract more than 800 mu of barren hills to develop crop cultivation and livestock breeding. Over the past few years, the couple planted about 80,000 Hainan rosewood trees (Dalbergia hainanensis) and 50,000 camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphora). In 2012, Liang Qingfeng made use of Taiyangshan town's 10,000-mu hotbed chive production base and, together with local farmers, established a chicken-raising cooperative, introducing turkey breeds from the United States, France and the United Kingdom to develop under-forest breeding. This formed a three-dimensional circular ecological breeding model in which discarded hotbed chive leaves and stems are fed to turkeys, turkey manure is collected and fermented for planting trees and vegetables, turkeys forage for insects under the forest, and turkeys and turkey eggs are supplied to the market. The turkeys raised have also been nicknamed "hotbed chive chickens" by local people, and the products have now been put on the market and are well received. Although they have spent years of savings and have not yet brought substantial returns to the villagers, Liang Qingfeng and his wife are not worried at all. He said: "If people are diligent, the land will not be lazy. These 800 mu of land are my strong backing." Speaking of his next plans, Liang Qingfeng said he intends to offer part of the planted Hainan rosewood and camphor trees for local people to "adopt" under their real names, giving benefits back to the people.