How can Ou Yizhong's dream of an organic farming kingdom be realized?

Ou Yizhong, a tall and sturdy middle-aged man of Li ethnicity and chairman of Hainan Baoting Zhonghai Hi-Tech Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., is a man full of surprises. He made his first pot of gold selling chemical fertilizers and pesticides, yet became obsessed with the breeding and cultivation of organic fruits and vegetables; he holds an MBA from Tsinghua University, yet leads his fellow villagers in farming to escape poverty and achieve prosperity; he has a comfortable life and a familiar circle of friends in the provincial capital, yet buries himself in remote mountains to work as a modest vegetable farmer……

Ten years ago, Ou Yizhong left his government post and went into business, founding Hainan Haolun Pesticide Technology Co., Ltd. in Haikou, Hainan Province, becoming a somewhat well-known agricultural materials dealer on the island, mainly dealing in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In November 2004, Haolun Agricultural Science was named an “Advanced Unit for Going to the Countryside in Hainan Province” by the Hainan Provincial Government, and he personally received the title of “Advanced Individual for Going to the Countryside in Hainan Province.” As the state increased its support for “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” Hainan, with its unique geographical location and natural environment, gradually became the nation's vegetable basket, fruit platter and an important holiday and leisure destination. During his long years in the agricultural materials business, Ou Yizhong often pondered a question: Hainan Island has fresh and clean air year-round, so how can environmental protection and agricultural production be organically unified to provide tourists with safer and healthier green food? Having grown up in a Li area, Ou Yizhong could never forget the taste of the fruits and vegetables grown in the mountains and fields that he ate as a boy, so he set his sights on organic fruits and vegetables. In September 2008, he took the 5 million yuan in capital he had accumulated from dealing in agricultural materials and returned to the Shiling area of Baoting County, where he registered and founded Zhonghai Hi-Tech Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.

Baoting is located in the southern inland part of Hainan, at the southern foot of Wuzhishan, with the Li ethnic group accounting for 56.2% and the Miao ethnic group accounting for 40%. The entire area has a long summer and no winter, with fertile land and abundant rainfall; sunshine and coconut groves form a picturesque southern scenery. Ou Yizhong chose to place the organic fruit and vegetable base in Shiling for three reasons: to the northeast of Shiling is Diaoluoshan, one of China's extremely rare primitive tropical rainforest areas; to the southeast is Qixianling, Hainan's largest hot spring tourism area; the Shiling River, the upper reaches of the Lingshui River, Hainan's fourth-largest river, flows nearby between the strange peaks and rainforests originating from Diaoluoshan and Qixianling, making it a pure natural oxygen bar; he grew up here and understands and speaks the Li language, making it easy to communicate with the Li people, and returning to his hometown to develop agriculture is also a way of giving back to the elders and fellow villagers of his hometown.

Over the past two years, he has built in Shiling 5 mu of adjustable greenhouses for organic fruits and vegetables, 5 mu of steel-structured greenhouses, and 40 mu of open-field demonstration plots, with an annual output of 600 tons of organic vegetables and 5 million seedlings raised annually, enough for farmers to plant 500 mu. He was the first in Hainan to pass organic certification from a national authoritative certification body——the Beijing Wuyue Huaxia Management Technology Center, and has successively produced 1,500 tons of high-grade fruits and vegetables, obtained 2 organic fertilizer patents, introduced 215 excellent fruit and vegetable varieties from home and abroad, and identified 32 local wild vegetable varieties. Ordinary pumpkins are sold by the jin on the market for only a few mao, but the organic mini pumpkins here sell for 20 yuan each; cherry tomatoes sell for one yuan per jin on the market, but the organic cherry tomatoes here sell for ten yuan per jin. The changes the Shiling base has brought to local farmers are real: nearby Li people who help at the base can earn 50 yuan a day in wages, and more importantly, the base has changed farmers' traditional thinking and given them the skills to grow fruits and vegetables without relying on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. On January 17, 2009, the Baoting County Government awarded Zhonghai Hi-Tech the title of Honest Investment Enterprise, and Ou Yizhong also received the honor of Outstanding Investor.

Hainan is the only province in the country that implements a specified animal disease-free zone across the entire province, making it an ideal base for producing and supplying green, safe and healthy agricultural and livestock products, and a health island and longevity island that attracts worldwide attention. As the construction of Hainan as an international tourism island rises to the level of national strategy, the time is right for developing organic agriculture. Not long ago, the Hainan Provincial Organic Agriculture Association, initiated by the Hainan Provincial Supply and Marketing Cooperative, was officially established. It includes the vast majority of organic agricultural product enterprises and individuals in the province, with 38 institutional members and 16 individual members. The large-scale organic product sales platform built by the association reaches directly to major supermarkets, high-end communities and hotels across the province. Ou Yizhong keenly realized that going it alone in producing organic fruits and vegetables left him too weak, and that he should join hands with other organic agricultural product enterprises to build the brand of Hainan organic fruits and vegetables. He actively responded to the supply and marketing cooperative's call to establish an organic agriculture association, and used the association's sales platform to sell fruits and vegetables across the island and to mainland provinces. In the winter and this spring, when some ordinary fruits and vegetables in Hainan encountered sales difficulties, organic fruits and vegetables became in short supply as the number of tourists arriving on the island surged, bringing him greater confidence in developing organic fruits and vegetables to lead his fellow villagers to prosperity.

Speaking of the market for organic fruits and vegetables, Ou Yizhong said with complete confidence that Hainan currently has 259 star-rated hotels, including 20 five-star hotels. Within 5 years, the number of five-star international-standard hotels will reach more than 60. In the Sanya area alone, there are 25 resort hotels of five-star standard or above already open, and 23 five-star or ultra-five-star hotels under construction. Looking south from Qixianling in Baoting County, at major bays along Hainan Island's east coast such as Haitang Bay, Qinghui Bay and Xiangshui Bay, world-renowned hotels such as Kempinski, Langham, Sofitel, Conrad, DoubleTree by Hilton, Fairmont, Grand Hyatt, Sheraton, The Luxury Collection, Shangri-La and Renaissance are rushing to establish themselves, and Hainan has become the region with the densest concentration of international high-end hotels. Against the backdrop of building an international tourism island, numerous world-renowned hotels have been moving into Hainan one after another, the number of top-tier domestic and international tourists arriving on the island keeps rising, and people's pursuit of food safety, all of which bring broad space for developing the organic food industry.

Amid the rich festive atmosphere of the Chinese New Year, Ou Yizhong described his organic agriculture dream: base the base in Shiling, adopt the business model of company + professional cooperative + farmers, radiate across all of Baoting, and plan to develop to a scale of 10,000 mu in 5-8 years, with a total output of 100,000 tons, an increase in output value of 200 million yuan, and drive more than 10,000 farming households in Baoting to cooperatively produce organic fruits and vegetables, truly making Zhonghai Hi-Tech a leading agricultural enterprise under the organic association that leads farmers to prosperity.