Wang Yunjuan Realizes Her Dream of Prosperity through Entrepreneurial Transformation

Wang Yunjuan is a major household-economy player in edible fungi cultivation among the employee community of Mangui Forestry Industry Company. The edible fungi products she cultivates, such as black fungus and mushrooms, are widely known and highly reputed in Mangui and throughout the northern forest region. The city of Genhe uses the black fungus she cultivates as a testing sample for its application for the "China Genhe Black Fungus National Geographical Indication Protection Mark."

As early as 2005, Wang Yunjuan came into contact with and gradually mastered edible fungi cultivation techniques, but she remained at a small-scale, low-level household planting stage. In 2012, with the encouragement and support of the company's trade union leadership, Wang Yunjuan strengthened her confidence in developing the edible fungi industry. Wang Yunjuan selected a large idle factory as her production base. The workshop and factory building area totals 4,305 sq m, and the base cultivation site reaches 20 mu. Mangui Forestry Industry Company also specially approved a 60-mu outdoor cultivation site by the Menggui River in the ecological function zone, capable of holding millions of fungus bags. Wang Yunjuan raised funds on her own to purchase advanced equipment, hire technical personnel, and create an industrial base in accordance with the company's standards for household-economy demonstration households.

Wang Yunjuan successively traveled to Mudanjiang, Shangzhi, and Weihe in Heilongjiang Province; and Dunhua, Wangqing, Huangsongdian, and Huangnihe in Jilin Province to study and inspect the cultivation techniques for black fungus, mushrooms, and lingzhi. She also inspected major edible fungi markets in Suiyang, Weihe, and Tengzhou, gaining a grasp of the cultivation conditions and sales trends of various fungus varieties, and introduced superior strains best suited to the geographical conditions of the northern forest region into her edible fungi production. She passed on and popularized the emerging techniques and processes she learned to surrounding employees and community members. Wang Yunjuan believes in the industrial development philosophy that "an industry must be built by everyone." Many employees and community members who worked with her learned the complete set of cultivation techniques for black fungus and mushrooms. Many set up their own operations and became new growers, becoming participants in this industry.

In order to align with the government's preferential agricultural policies, seek policy support, and rapidly strengthen the industry, Wang Yunjuan adopted an enterprise-style operation and industrialized development model based on her base. Leveraging her own industrial foundation, technical level, and regional influence, she actively sought industrial development support policies from the government. Currently, some projects have been reviewed and approved by government finance departments. In 2014, Wang Yunjuan and industry colleagues initiated the establishment of the "Genhe City Edible Fungi Industry Development Promotion Association" and she served as a council member. Her base was designated as one of the "Genhe City Million-Bag Edible Fungi Production Bases" and one of the 3 registered industrial bases for the "China Genhe Black Fungus" National Geographical Indication Protection Mark.

Currently, the Greater Khingan Mountains forest region of Inner Mongolia has completely stopped commercial logging of natural forests, and Wang Yunjuan's edible fungi production base has become an ideal place for providing employment to employees and community members. Wang Yunjuan's edible fungi production base has a production scale of 200,000 bags of black fungus and 100,000 bags of nameko mushrooms, and can arrange employment for more than 50 people during the production and harvesting periods. The base employs more than 20 family members of forestry employees year-round.

Wang Yunjuan's production base annually provides high-quality Grade 3 finished fungus bags to forestry employees. In 2014, Yang Hongwei, an employee of the Forestry Bureau's Fire Prevention Office, purchased 15,000 black fungus bags at cost price from the base, with an average dry product yield of 0.08 jin per bag and a net income of 34,500 yuan. For base employees with financial difficulties, Wang Yunjuan gives them some fungus bags free of charge each year. For peers and individual growers, whether the problems involve materials and supplies or technical aspects, Wang Yunjuan always responds to every request and answers every question, with the goal of helping them increase their income.

Through developing household-economy projects, Wang Yunjuan gradually built up her edible fungi production base and became the foremost household-economy demonstration household in the edible fungi industry at Mangui Forestry Industry Company. Each year, after deducting production costs and employee wages, per capita income increases by 50,000 yuan. With her own industrial foundation and technical expertise, Wang Yunjuan has taken on the responsibilities and mission entrusted to her by the enterprise, influenced and led the employees and community members around her to prosperity, and made new contributions to the economic transformation and development of the forest region.