Guizhou Kaili pheasant farming leader helps fellow villagers get rich together

On October 8, with light rain falling from the sky, at the Tyson Pheasant Farm in Dongxia Village, Sanshushu Town, Kaili City, sleek, beautifully feathered wild pheasants were happily foraging and playing. Apart from the dark green net overhead, their surroundings were no different from the surrounding mountain forest.

A lifelike pheasant specimen sits on the desk, and several feather paintings with Miao and Dong ethnic styles made from pheasant feathers hang on the wall. The office of Yang Xilin, the person in charge of the farm, has a character all its own. "The specimen I made myself, and the feather paintings I also designed myself and directed the workers to make. We have just test-marketed them, and the response has been good," Yang Xilin said. Affected by the farming season, this year's pheasant chicks were basically all sold before National Day, and now he is focusing more on deeply exploring the value of wild pheasants, pondering how to make the road to prosperity even broader.

After nearly 8 years of raising wild pheasants, this young man born in the 1980s still keeps himself on edge, because behind him there is already a large team. As the leader jokingly called the "Pheasant Commander" by everyone, his burden is heavy.

More often, Yang Xilin feels he is a "service attendant." The people he serves are spread across Qiandongnan, Guiyang, Duyun, Zunyi and other places, and he even has clients in Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan and other provinces. These are all wild pheasant farmers newly developed in recent years, totaling more than 150 households. Besides providing chicks and feed, Yang Xilin also provides free technical training and management consulting, and even when sales are sluggish, he has to buy back commercial wild pheasants.

"Whether acting as 'Pheasant Commander' or 'service attendant,' I am happy to see more and more people grow rich together." Yang Xilin smiled, showing a mouthful of white teeth that formed a sharp contrast with his dark face.

In 2003, after graduating from Guiyang Health School with a major in clinical medicine, Yang Xilin worked as a doctor and a landscaping project manager, among other jobs, and accumulated a sum of wealth. Once at a dinner table, he tasted a dish of pheasant. The delicious flavor and high price left a deep impression on him, and he immediately came up with the idea of raising wild pheasants himself. After doing some market research, in 2008 Yang Xilin resolutely invested several hundred thousand yuan of his savings in his hometown and began raising wild pheasants in the barren mountains, becoming the first person in Kaili City to raise wild pheasants on a large scale.

Yang Xilin said that from the beginning of his business until now, he has felt a great deal of warmth from local government departments, from coordinating water and electricity to posting supply information on the agricultural economic information network, from pen design to pheasant epidemic prevention, help was available in every aspect.

It was precisely this warmth that further strengthened Yang Xilin's original intention not to "fly solo" on the road to prosperity. In December 2009, as pheasant farming began to get on track, Yang Xilin organized and established the "Kaili City Tyson Pheasant Farming Association" and began helping others escape poverty. By then Yang Xilin had already accumulated experience and methods in pheasant farming techniques, disease prevention and control, seedling breeding, feed ratios and other aspects. For farmers who wanted to engage in pheasant farming, Yang Xilin provided a full range of services from supplying chicks to sales.

In just a few short years, a pheasant farming trend arose in Qiandongnan Prefecture. Within Qiandongnan Prefecture alone, membership grew to 147 households, with about 120,000 commercial pheasants raised and marketed annually, and output value reaching six to seven million yuan.

"We must make everyone's road to prosperity more solid and more stable." The growth of the team made Yang Xilin feel the responsibility weighing more heavily on his shoulders. In addition to working harder on farming techniques and market sales, he also explored deep processing and new product development such as white-cut chicken, cooked food development, pheasant specimen making and pheasant feather paintings, striving to open up a broader new world for farmers.

In May last year, Yang Xilin organized and established the "Kaili City Tyson Pheasant Farming Association Science Popularization Service Station for Benefiting Farmers," building a strong platform for farmers to learn farming techniques, exchange experience and explore market sales channels. At present, he is preparing to build a large wild pheasant experience base integrating sightseeing, learning, dining and craft purchases.