Yue Bin, a Prosperity Leader Made by the Forest Farm's Transformation
It is precisely because of the forest farm's transformation and development that Yue Bin has an income of more than 200,000 yuan per year. Before the transformation and development, such an income was something Yue Bin would not even dare to imagine. Yue Bin is the work area director of the Hongsiling Work Area of the Kongshan Comprehensive Forest Farm in Tongjiang County, Sichuan Province. Relying on the rich under-forest resources of the Kongshan Forest Farm, he has vigorously developed under-forest economy, which has not only made his wallet fuller and fuller, but also made him a prosperity leader in the transformation and development of the Tongjiang forest farms.
The predecessor of the Kongshan Comprehensive Forest Farm was a logging mill. Before 1998, the forest farm's workers mainly relied on logging to make a living. Since the implementation of the Natural Forest Protection Project, the main work of the forest farm's workers changed from logging to planting trees, and the workers began to "lie" on the Natural Forest Protection Project to get by. The mentality of "waiting, relying, and asking" became the "mainstream" in the forest farm for a time. Faced with the negative thinking produced by the workers during the bottleneck period of the forest farm's transformation, the forest farm's leaders were also at a loss as to what to do.
A turning point appeared at this time.
When the Tongjiang County Forestry Bureau put forward the call to "encourage forest farm workers to rely on rich under-forest resources and vigorously develop self-operated economy," the forest farm's leaders first thought of Yue Bin, who had always been proactive and hardworking. The forest farm's leaders encouraged Yue Bin to boldly start a business, change his living conditions through developing the forestry industry, and at the same time drive the workers to develop self-operated economy. Yue Bin knew that "waiting, relying, and asking" is for mediocre men, and "neither waiting nor relying" is what makes a true man, but he also deeply understood the risks involved. After learning of this situation, the forest farm's leaders not only promised to provide Yue Bin with technical guidance, but also lent him start-up funds for development, relieving him of worries.
In 2007, Yue Bin used 5,000 yuan borrowed from the forest farm to first plant 20 mu of rhubarb, and also bought more than 50 Nanjiang yellow goats, but Yue Bin suffered a heavy setback in raising the yellow goats. Because the forest farm is located in an alpine-cold zone, the yellow goats had relatively poor disease resistance. At the beginning, Yue Bin also did not understand breeding techniques, and in the end few yellow goats were left. Fortunately, with the rhubarb planting techniques provided to Yue Bin by the forest farm, 1,500 kg of finished rhubarb that year brought a profit of 6,000 yuan. "Although there were setbacks, I still got a taste of the sweetness of developing planting, so it was a mix of joy and sorrow," Yue Bin recalled.
Under the guidance of the Tongjiang County Forestry Bureau's idea of "vigorously developing diverse under-forest economies such as forest medicine, forest livestock, forest fruit, and forest tourism," Yue Bin no longer limited himself to a single planting industry. In 2014, with the encouragement and help of the forest farm's leaders, he borrowed 200,000 yuan from the bank and raised 87 Kongshan yellow cattle and 120 Tongjiang fire goats. Although 10 yellow cattle died due to poor management, the 20 yellow cattle and 60 fire goats marketed that year brought him an income of 40,000 yuan. As his rhubarb planting techniques became increasingly mature, Yue Bin expanded the rhubarb planting area to 100 mu, and that year breeding and rhubarb planting together brought a profit of 110,000 yuan. Under the Tongjiang County Party Committee and County Government's deployment to increase construction in Kongshan, Yue Bin also saw business opportunities in developing an agritainment business. "Since I am doing under-forest breeding myself, why not create an integrated production-and-sales chain?" Yue Bin thought about opening an agritainment business to provide tourists with purely natural, pollution-free beef and mutton from his own breeding, which could both increase economic income and publicize Kongshan's natural resources to tourists. Last April, Yue Bin opened an agritainment business called "Genjudi" in Zhongba Village, Kongshan Township, and that year it made a profit of 80,000 yuan.
This year, in developing the forest farm's specialty industries, while further improving the planting quality of 100 mu of rhubarb, Yue Bin also invested 100,000 yuan to plant 1,000 pits of Polyporus umbellatus and raise 80 Kongshan yellow cattle and 240 goats, striving to achieve a profit of 200,000 yuan. Yue Bin said that the forest farm's transformation and development have brought workers new opportunities to become prosperous, and in the future he will use his brain more to lead more of the forest farm's workers to prosperity and a moderately prosperous life.