Good Sister Quan Xiulan Leads Villagers to Weave a Dream of Prosperity
In the photo, the tomatoes planted by Quan Xiulan have yielded a bumper harvest.
After winding along the twisting village paths for several turns, the reporter finally found Quan Xiulan in the fields. Already in her early 60s, she was barefoot in the field inspecting the growth of water chestnuts, her rough hands brushing over the water chestnut seedlings that spread out like green hope. The autumn wind tousled her ear-length short hair. "These water chestnuts were just fertilized. Look, they're growing exceptionally well!" Quan Xiulan said happily.
For more than a decade, Quan Xiulan, with only a junior high school education, carved out a career from the soil through diligence and wisdom, becoming the leading figure in poverty alleviation in Yantang Village Committee, Yantang Town, Zhongshan County, and the "Good Sister" in the village who never forgot her roots despite her success.
"If You Do It, Do It Best"
In 1991, the "job-seeking wave" swept through, and at that time young people in Yantang Town flocked in large numbers to the Pearl River Delta region for work. Many who returned after working away built small Western-style houses for their families. Quan Xiulan saw this and felt envious. She too wanted to leave her family's "little kitchen stove" and venture onto the "big stage" outside. "But I really couldn't leave home. The children were still young, and the elderly needed care." Quan Xiulan had a belly full of drive and ambition, but had to pour it all into the land of her hometown.
In 1998, a 40-mu ponkan orange orchard belonging to the Yantang Town Supply and Marketing Cooperative was on the verge of total crop failure due to poor management. When everyone hesitated to take it over, Quan Xiulan voluntarily contracted it. But sheer grit and energy alone weren't enough; the lack of technical knowledge was the bottleneck restricting fruit tree cultivation. With a determination not to give in and with courage, she visited agricultural bases in Gongcheng, Guilin, Guangdong and other places to learn, went to the Zhongshan County Agriculture Bureau and Science and Technology Bureau to seek mentorship, actively participated in technical training classes held in the town, and scrimped and saved to subscribe to numerous newspapers and books on agricultural technology.
"I go to the orchard every day to take a look. When I encounter technical problems, I read more books; when I encounter planting problems, I ask people with experience for advice." After painstaking efforts, the orchard Quan Xiulan contracted that year enjoyed a bumper harvest, with an output of 25,000 kg and an income of 50,000 yuan. "Isn't this better than going out to work!" Having earned her first pot of gold, Quan Xiulan's confidence soared. In the following years, she boldly expanded her planting to more than 60 mu of early-maturing Wenzhou mandarins and sugar oranges. The orchard grew larger in scale and more profitable, gradually becoming a large-scale fruit farm with an annual income of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan. She also became a well-known large-scale fruit grower and a skilled woman entrepreneur in the area.
Apart from weather and price factors, over nearly 20 years of fruit-growing, Quan Xiulan's orchard never suffered losses due to technical errors. "If you're not going to do it, don't do it; if you do it, do it best." This is what Quan Xiulan often says, and it is the creed she has practiced for over a decade. Through her own step-by-step exploration, she became a "self-taught expert" in fruit growing, and she unreservedly passed on her successful experience hand by hand to other fruit farmers. "Sister is amazing. Once she passed by my orchard, took one look and said, 'Your fruit trees have red spiders.' At the time I had no idea what red spiders were, and I was lucky she spotted it early." Villager Uncle Liao said with emotion.
"Whatever Sister Lan plants, we plant." Besides fruit trees, starting from 2012, Quan Xiulan contracted 170 mu of paddy fields at the foot of Daweiling Mountain, rotating crops of pink water chestnuts, tomatoes, flue-cured tobacco, hybrid rice and more according to market demand. The 70 mu of pink water chestnuts alone generated 80,000 yuan in revenue in a single year. When the villagers saw that Quan Xiulan had dug "golden nuggets" out of the land, they followed suit and expanded their planting. The vegetable and melon orchard area of 258 mu that Quan Xiulan and the women she led cultivated set a record in 2012 alone, generating 300,000 yuan in fruit revenue and 200,000 yuan each from vegetables and pink water chestnuts, directly boosting the income of surrounding farming households by a total of 500,000 yuan.
The "Good Sister" Who Never Forgot Her Roots
Since 2005, Quan Xiulan has received honors including National Rural Women's "Double Learn, Double Compete" Skilled Woman, National Old Revolutionary Base Area Women's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Model, Autonomous Region "Double Learn, Double Compete" Advanced Skilled Woman, "Women's Science and Technology Demonstration Household," and Regional "Science and Technology Demonstration Household."
From contracting an orchard to relying on science and technology to grow fruit and step by step embarking on the road to prosperity, Quan Xiulan never forgot her fellow villagers and encouraged them to also take the path of fruit cultivation toward prosperity. "Gonggan oranges have thin skins and crisp, sweet flesh, and fetch good prices on the market. Plant Gonggan!" She vigorously introduced famous, special and high-quality fruit varieties and guided villagers in adjusting their industrial structure. "You plan at home, and I'll charge ahead outside." She said this to her introverted husband and encouraged him to jointly operate with rural brokers to transfer fruit externally, opening up a one-stop channel for fruit production, supply and sales, and relieving fruit farmers of their worries.
One day in early summer 2010, a woman from the village rushed anxiously to Quan Xiulan's home. "Sister, something's wrong. I used fake pesticide, and my fruit tree leaves have turned scorched and yellow!" Quan Xiulan quickly dropped what she was doing to go check. She carefully examined the fruit trees, then read the pesticide instructions, and finally breathed a sigh of relief: "The pesticide isn't fake. You just didn't mix the solution in the right proportion." She became the go-to "know-it-all" for fruit growing within a hundred li radius, and her orchard became a "demonstration base" for surrounding farmers. Under her leadership and influence, the once-barren foot of Daweiling Mountain is now clothed in green, with the fragrance of fruit wafting through the hills. The fruit-growing area in her Yantang Village Committee exceeded 4,000 mu.
Today, her vegetable and melon orchard base attracts over a thousand person-visits for work each year. "Working here with Sister Lan, you can earn more than 10,000 yuan a year," said Luo Qiulian, a villager from Yantang Village Committee. Quan Xiulan is generous by nature. When pollinating hybrid rice, everyone worked only two hours, but she was willing to pay half a day's wages.
Not only that, in the early years when her own orchard was just starting to prosper, Quan Xiulan contributed money and effort without expecting anything in return, voluntarily providing labor to lead villagers in building a road 2 km long and 3 m wide. She generously donated nearly 10,000 yuan to build a drinking water project for people and livestock, channeling spring water down from Daweiling Mountain, solving the production and domestic water problems for two natural villages, Dichang and Fanshu Chang... Quan Xiulan became the "Good Sister" whom locals give a thumbs-up to whenever her name is mentioned.
"Actually, what I've done is hardly worth mentioning." Whenever someone praises her, Quan Xiulan always smiles dismissively. In her simple philosophy of life, "only when everyone lives a good life together can we feel more secure." True to her word, over the years she has always been striving to lead her fellow villagers in weaving a dream of prosperity.