Vegetable base puts its wealth-building know-how to work, growing a better life with higher incomes
On October 13, the reporter walked into the Jiuxian vegetable base in Yutian Town, Suichuan County. The base was a sea of green, with vegetables full of life, and vegetable farmers were busy picking vegetables in the fields and loading them into farm vehicles. "The supermarket is waiting to sell them!" Guo Junhua, the person in charge of the base, happily told his entrepreneurial story.
"When I was a child, my family was poor. After graduating from junior high school, I went to Guangdong to work, opened a shop in Xiamen, and did transport. Even though I was in business and constantly rushing around and wearing myself out, I still felt that working for others was just a transition in life, and in the end I had to have my own career!" said 39-year-old Guo Junhua as he talked about his original intention for starting a business.
In 2012, Guo Junhua chose to return to his hometown to start a business. He made full use of the preferential policies of the Party and the government and the favorable conditions of his hometown's century-old history of vegetable growing. With strong support from the township Party committee and government, in Zhongzhou Village, Yutian Town, he leased 60 mu of land from farmers in the group at a rent of more than 300 yuan per mu, and founded a pollution-free vegetable base.
"Everything is hard at the beginning, and starting a business is not an easy thing. When I first returned home, some vegetable farmers worried about having no sales channel and were afraid of losing money, so under the leadership of township and village cadres, we went door to door together to do mobilization work among the people, negotiated the cooperation model and corresponding guarantees, and signed formal production and sales agreements with the vegetable farmers. On this basis, the Jiuxian Vegetable Cooperative of Yutian Town was established, implementing exclusive sales of products and making advance payments at the standard of 300 yuan per mu. Up to now, 107 farming households have joined the cooperative, and the total area of the vegetable base is more than 220 mu," Guo Junhua said. In production, the cooperative held 8 practical technical training sessions, enabling members to master scientific planting techniques, strictly follow the national pollution-free vegetable operating procedures for production, and uniformly supply organic fertilizer, farmyard manure, plastic film, supports and other means of production. Once the vegetable production quality problem was solved, the cooperative received many orders one after another because of the good product quality and punctual delivery. Vegetables produced at the base, such as cabbage, radish, chili peppers, green beans and melons, were sold inside and outside the province.
"When I was at my most difficult, it was the local folks who helped me, so I also want everyone to walk the road to prosperity together, live a good life, and make my hometown more beautiful!" Last year, Guo Junhua led the villagers together, and the total income of cooperative members reached more than 2 million yuan! In summer and autumn, when green beans entered their peak production period, Guo Junhua hired a large number of green bean pickers, giving priority to poor households. There was a poor household in the village, and Guo Junhua invited them to work at the base as seasonal laborers, earning nearly 10,000 yuan.
In order to build a strong brand, Guo Junhua also applied to register the "Xingzhou" trademark, and applied with the Ministry of Agriculture for "pollution-free product certification" for eggplants and bitter gourds. "Next, I will strive to expand the area of the vegetable base, let vegetable farmers from neighboring villages join in too, and let more people eat vegetables they can trust!" Guo Junhua said. Many city people have opened a plot of vegetable land here, and on weekends they bring their children to experience growing vegetables and organize picking activities.