Three-dimensional Farming Helps Ai Deyong Open the Door to Prosperity

Ai Deyong, 41, of Zhugenpo Village, Ziwei Town, Yinjiang Autonomous County, made money selling vegetables in the city, then resolutely chose to return to his village to start a business, setting up a three-dimensional farming model of "pig raising + liquor distilling + vegetables" in the village, bringing him a net income of 150,000 yuan a year and opening the door to increasing income and prosperity.

On October 25, the author came to Ai Deyong's farm and saw that Ai Deyong, who had just driven his truck back from selling vegetables in the town, did not bother to rest and went straight to the pig pen to feed the pigs.

Ai Deyong told the author that before 2009, he was still growing vegetables in the city. Although he could make a lot of money, he could not take care of his children, so he kept looking for a way to return to the village to start a business.

What would be good to develop? Through investigation, Ai Deyong found that at that time pork was in short supply, and every household in the village used vegetables from their own fields as pig feed, so Ai Deyong got the idea of raising pigs. In May 2009, he took out more than 100,000 yuan earned from selling vegetables in the city and returned to the village to raise pigs.

He acted as soon as he made up his mind. After a month, Ai Deyong built a 520 sq m pig pen and raised 150 pigs, and the feed cost several hundred yuan a day. Ai Deyong began to think about how to reduce feed costs. The next year, he took out 60,000 yuan earned from selling pigs and built a small distillery next to the pig pen, so that the distillers' grains could be used to feed the pigs. At the same time, he also transferred more than 30 mu of idle land in the village to grow vegetables. After taking the high-quality, fresh vegetables to the market town to sell, the rest were used as pig feed.

"The distillers' grains from distilling liquor can be used to feed pigs, and the vegetables that cannot be sold can also be used to feed pigs. In this way, the cost of feed is reduced and mutual benefit and win-win results are achieved," said Ai Deyong, who loves to use his brain.

Just when Ai Deyong's farming was going smoothly, misfortune struck. In 2012, swine fever hit him, causing a loss of nearly 200,000 yuan.

"During the 2012 swine fever, more than 100 pigs died at that time. I was very grieved, but I believe failure is the mother of success, and persistence will bring victory." Ai Deyong said this, and he also did this. With tears, he transported the dead pigs out to bury them. Starting from the remaining 5 sows, through his careful raising, by the end of the year they had grown to 60. This year, he has already sold 150 fattened pigs, with a net income of 60,000 yuan. Adding the income from distilling liquor and vegetables, he made a net profit of 150,000 yuan.

Being rich alone does not count as being rich; leading everyone to common prosperity is Ai Deyong's wish. He drew up his own farming plan, adopting the model of "cooperative + large farming households + farmers" to provide villagers with guarantees such as piglets, technical guidance, buyback and sales.

"I want to expand the scale of farming and establish a pig-raising professional cooperative to drive the surrounding people to become rich together." Talking about his next plans, what Ai Deyong still has in mind is the villagers.