The entrepreneurial story of Shi Jian, a skilled vegetable grower

By the banks of the Jiaosha River in Chong'an Town, Huangping County, passersby are always drawn to the endless sight of planting greenhouses and open-field vegetable bases. There are plots of tomatoes so red they tempt the eye, fields of peppers bent over with fruit, and patches of green celery, scallions, and lovely purple eggplants. On this fertile, lush base, transport vehicles from all over arrive every day, continuously shipping cases of pollution-free vegetables to Kaili, Guiyang, and even large and medium-sized cities like Chongqing and Chengdu. If one were to describe the Jiaosha vegetable base as a "supply station" for the neighboring urban vegetable baskets, it would not be an exaggeration at all. No wonder a market vendor in Kaili often calls to urge: "If Jiaosha vegetables run out of stock, vegetable prices in Kaili's markets will double." When it comes to keeping prices stable on the "tip of the tongue" for residents of Kaili and other cities, credit goes to the founder of the Jiaosha vegetable base -- Shi Jian.

Shi Jian, 32 years old this year, is a young farmer from Jiaosha Village in Chong'an Town. As more and more young and middle-aged rural residents go out to work in recent years, it has become very common for land to lie barren because no one farms it. At the end of 2004, Shi Jian, who had been working away from home for a long time, returned to his hometown and saw patches of good farmland going to waste despite favorable weather. He felt deeply pained, and decided to give up the idea of going out to earn money. Instead, he took advantage of the policies the state had introduced to encourage rural land circulation and set his mind on digging a "golden doll" out of his hometown's soil. Starting in 2005, he successively pursued multiple ventures in the village, including raising fish in reservoirs, running automobile transport, opening a shop, and planting crops. At the time, whenever he heard that growing something was profitable, Shi Jian would "follow the trend" and busy himself blindly. Because he rushed in without planning, he often lost everything. For example, in 2006 he contracted 50 mu of rice paddies to grow a Guangxi variety of sugarcane, but due to differences in climate and soil, the more than 100,000 yuan he invested that year was all washed away, and he even ended up deeply in debt. After learning from these lessons, Shi Jian calmly kept an eye on urban and rural markets at all times. By chance, when he visited relatives in Maoping Village in the same town, he saw the vegetable planting demonstration garden promoted by the county agriculture bureau during its peak sales season, and witnessed several villagers' carts of vegetables instantly turning into stacks of cash. Shi Jian was stirred up inside and wished he could have that kind of income overnight too. After returning home, he decided to set his sights for prosperity on the "vegetable basket" that people cannot do without at all three meals a day. At that time, there were very few specialized vegetable growers in Chong'an Town, and each grower's techniques were not yet mature. In the first half of 2007, while learning as he worked and exploring as he did, Shi Jian and his wife contracted more than 40 mu of rice paddies from villagers in front of their home and began growing off-season vegetables. Through the couple's hard work from dawn to dusk, they earned nearly 100,000 yuan in just one season that year, more than ten times what they had earned before through their "Yang Bailao"-style struggles. Having tasted sweet success in the black soil for the first time, Shi Jian's drive and confidence in growing vegetables increased greatly. After that, he continuously expanded his planting area along the banks of the Jiaosha River. Because he studied scientific planting techniques assiduously, and with the support of government policies, his planting returns doubled year after year. After seeing that Shi Jian was making "real money" from growing vegetables, the villagers in his village and nearby villages also began doing vegetable garden business one after another.

In order to lead more farming households to realize the dream of common prosperity in the vegetable industry, at a village group work meeting, Shi Jian issued a call to the villagers present: "Everyone, plant boldly. I, Shi Jian, will definitely help with all my strength." In 2008, he organized 8 households for the first time to try large-scale planting on 97 mu of land, and personally guided them hand by hand in technical management, from seedling raising, transplanting, and fertilizer and water management, so that the farmers quickly obtained short, flat, and fast wealth from vegetable garden cultivation. For example, with Shi Jian's help, villager Zhang Guangguo planted one season of cucumbers and other vegetables on 10 mu of fields that year. According to on-site yield measurement by the agriculture department, cucumber yield per mu reached 3,768.7 kg, with an output value of 4,522 yuan, enabling Zhang Guangguo to earn a net income of more than 20,000 yuan in just one quarter that year. He said to other farmers with emotion: "I've done farm work for decades, and now I see that growing rice for ten years is not even as good as planting one season of vegetables!"

If promoting new techniques and new varieties is a scientific and arduous process, then completely changing the reliance on pesticides and chemical fertilizers to boost yields and income requires exploring a better and faster shortcut from traditional agriculture. In vegetable growing, Shi Jian took diligent thinking and a knack for research as his starting point, and in practice gradually worked out a series of comprehensive production and management experiences, including green seed soaking and sprouting, seedling raising and transplanting, plastic film mulching, rational close planting, integrated pest and disease control, and timely harvesting. In guiding villagers to develop vegetable planting, he strictly followed the requirements of pollution-free vegetable production technical regulations, strengthened pollution-free standardized cultivation, and ensured the quality and taste of local vegetable products. At the same time, he also actively participated in multiple vegetable new variety introduction trials and demonstrations carried out by the county agriculture department. From 23 trial-planted varieties, he selected 15 superior varieties suitable for local planting and promoted them. Because vegetable varieties were constantly being renewed, promoted, and applied, vegetable production achieved a strong momentum of catching up and surpassing in all places, whether in yield or sales channels. Jiaosha vegetables quickly gained a foothold in vegetable markets in Huangping County town, Kaili, and Guiyang, becoming a green dish favored by residents.

After 8 years of struggling on vegetable garden bases and accumulating a great deal of rich planting technique through practice, Shi Jian attracted the attention of relevant county departments, which designated him as a vegetable base demonstration site. This also radiated outward to drive surrounding vegetable farmers to develop production, effectively promoting the county's vegetable industry. From 2008 to now, Shi Jian has successively established 7 vegetable bases in various townships across the county, with an area of more than 900 mu. In addition, at some bases he promoted strip rotation intercropping and soilless cultivation techniques, increasing agricultural economic income several times over compared with the past. Seeing farmers' enthusiasm for growing vegetables continue to rise and sales channels further broaden, Shi Jian, on the basis of increasing integrated land circulation operations, also organized growers in July 2013 to apply for and establish a professional cooperative. Membership quickly grew to more than 110 people, including 23 specialized sales members, 4 transport vehicles, and 8 pieces of production agricultural machinery. Because all vegetable bases run by Shi Jian implement pollution-free vegetable cultivation, the standardized production rate of members' planting bases has already approached 90%. For example, in 2014, he established 200 mu of scallions in rotation after tobacco in the Jiaosha Village and Shangtang Town Mujiang tobacco core area, and 10.8 mu of hydroponic soilless celery using comprehensive utilization of tobacco seedling greenhouses. Upon acceptance inspection by agriculture and science and technology departments, the average yield per mu of scallions and hydroponic celery at the base reached more than 4,000 kg, with total income from the two items reaching 6.4 million yuan. As market orders continued to increase, in 2015 Shi Jian and his wife planted 200 mu of peppers, 30 mu of celery, and 100 mu of scallions in Jiaosha and Jintai Dam respectively, with an estimated output value of 3.18 million yuan. Under his leadership, the vegetable industry in Jiaosha Village has become a "treasure bowl" and an order deposit book for farming households' income. For example, every year when the pepper season arrives, the peppers shipped out from here reach more than 200 tons. The development of the vegetable industry not only made Shi Jian a well-known local vegetable boss overnight, but also helped him solve employment problems for more than 20 land-lost farmers in surrounding villages.

In order to capture the market with quality amid fierce market competition and win more orders, Shi Jian also regularly organizes technical training in the vegetable cooperative, further updating members' or farmers' vegetable planting skills through training. Over the past few years, in addition to completing vegetable technical training for more than 700 person-times, he has also led members to Chongqing, Guangdong, and other places for market investigations, broadly forming joint sales partnerships with vegetable merchants from other regions. On the premise of effectively protecting vegetable farmers' economic interests, this paved a broader and wider living and sales space for the vegetable industry in Jiaosha and other places. At present, while actively expanding production scale, Shi Jian has already applied to the Guizhou Provincial agriculture and science and technology departments for certification of "pollution-free agricultural products of peppers and scallions."