Leech farming fulfills a college-graduate village official's dream of enriching the people
"It's simply ridiculous. That young Zhu fellow is truly absurd. Farming leeches and expecting to make money? After four years of university, he finally jumped out of the 'farm gate,' yet he actually came back to the countryside to be a mud-footed peasant like the rest of us. What's the point of all that university education..."
In July 2013, amid the doubts and even mockery of his fellow villagers, Zhu Wenli, a university graduate who majored in ocean management at Huaihai Institute of Technology, gave up a comfortable job in the city. After passing the recruitment exam for college-graduate village officials, he returned to his hometown - Dapeng Village, Guocun Town - to serve as deputy director of the village committee, and at the same time began his path to prosperity through leech farming.
The goal was set back on the university campus
"Land in the city is truly precious. Even using a public toilet costs fifty cents to one yuan. In the countryside, with all this land, working yourself to death on one mu of field only earns you 1,000 yuan!" In 2009, while spraying pesticides at home, an exhausted Zhu Wenli kept thinking about this problem: how could rural land yield the greatest benefit? At that time, he thought of farming snakehead fish, farming rice-field eels, and also farming crabs and other specialty aquatic products.
After returning to school, Zhu Wenli told his teacher about his plans. Who would have thought that the teacher responded with just one question: "What you're describing is all conventional specialty aquatic farming. Can you find an aquatic product that is valuable when alive and also valuable when dead, and farm that?"
One sentence awakened him from his dream. The teacher's words completely dispelled Zhu Wenli's previous ideas. After consulting a large amount of material and a series of comparisons, Zhu Wenli chose leech farming. After receiving his teacher's approval, Zhu Wenli began to focus on leech farming. The teacher also provided him with a dedicated laboratory for conducting full-cycle leech farming experiments, in order to collect various data from the leech farming process.
Practice: exploring first together with his father
In 2010, after completing his ideas and the collection of relevant materials on leech farming, Zhu Wenli told his father about his plans - but only on the premise that he would provide the technical conditions for his father to do the farming, rather than doing it himself after graduation. Because Zhu Wenli knew that if his father knew he wanted to return to his hometown to engage in leech farming after graduation, he would absolutely not agree!
After receiving his father's approval, Zhu Wenli asked for a week's leave from school and took his father to visit more than 30 large and small leech farms across Jiangsu Province whose locations could be found online. In the second half of that year, they contracted over 50 mu of land in their hometown and used a small portion of it for concrete leech farming practice, while also exploring the specific market conditions for leeches.
To ensure success, on Zhu Wenli's suggestion, they adopted standardized farming methods. In 2011, they first set up over 1,000 sq m of water surface, all using pollution-free farming, especially using biological regulation during the farming process and strictly prohibiting the use of antibiotics. During harvesting, they avoided the methods used in some places such as copper sulfate or pyrethroid pesticides, instead using manual harvesting to ensure the quality of the leeches. That year, they earned over 40,000 yuan.
Venturing out, solely to accumulate more experience
"Actually, the idea of returning home had always been buried deep in my heart, but I knew very well that if I returned right after graduating from university, first, my father might not agree, and second, it wouldn't be good for my future development, especially not for my career development." Speaking of his experiences before returning home, Zhu Wenli said with deep feeling, "Only through actual social work can one learn more information and accumulate more technical and market experience."
After graduating from university, Zhu Wenli worked at three large aquaculture enterprises in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places. For Zhu Wenli, this was less a job and more a kind of journey. Because of this journey, his life became more colorful, and at the same time he accumulated a great deal of technical and market experience, which could be said to have laid a more solid foundation for his return home to start a business.
Returning home: being a good village official while also starting a business
"A father knows his son best. Actually, when Wenli asked me to farm leeches, I knew this kid wanted to come back, especially when I saw that I had contracted over 50 mu of land at home - it was really too hard." Zhu Wenli's father, Zhu Xiubing, showed a proud smile on his face when talking about his son's return home.
Zhu Xiubing said: "In 2013, the local Party committee was recruiting college-graduate village officials. When I found out, I called him to ask his opinion, asking whether he was willing to come back and apply. Actually, when I made that call, I was very conflicted. I wanted my son to come back, but I also didn't want him to come back. After all, at that time his basic annual salary at that enterprise in Zhenjiang was already 100,000 yuan, plus various commissions, it was at least 150,000 yuan. And he had studied for so many years, finally jumping out of the 'farm gate.' Now if I asked him to come back, would he blame me in the future?"
Upon learning the news, Zhu Wenli also felt the time had come to return home. Although he had been venturing outside for less than 2 years, since his hometown needed him, it was better to go back sooner and make contributions to the villagers earlier. Zhu Wenli thought this way: although the salary was low, he could after all continue to work in the profession he loved, and could also lead many villagers to prosperity together. What could be better than one person returning home and many people becoming prosperous?
Having made up his mind, Zhu Wenli duly took the reserve cadre recruitment exam organized by the local Party committee, and smoothly passed the exam and assessment, becoming a college-graduate village official - deputy director of the Dapeng Village Committee in Guocun Town - and began his path of returning home to start a business and demonstrate and guide farmers to prosperity.
Guidance: demonstration and service leading villagers to prosperity
After returning home, Zhu Wenli began learning work experience in rural affairs on the one hand, and on the other hand expanded and improved the quality of the family's original leech farming. Without neglecting his village committee work, in 2014, Zhu Wenli expanded the family's original 1,000 sq m of leech farming water surface to 7,000 sq m. That year's income increased from 160,000 yuan the previous year to over 500,000 yuan. In 2015, he expanded by another 3,000 sq m, bringing the leech farming water surface to 10,000 sq m. This year is expected to be another bumper year.
Driven by Zhu Wenli, and especially because of his free technical assistance, many people were happy to take up leech farming. Local villager Shi Wanyu was originally a professional chicken farmer of many years. After seeing Zhu Wenli's success, he also followed him in farming leeches. At the beginning of this year, Shi Wanyu suffered losses from chicken farming and didn't even have the money to buy leech seedlings when he started. Upon learning of this situation, Zhu Wenli, despite having taken out loans for his own farming, resolutely advanced over 70,000 yuan for Shi Wanyu's leech seedlings, allowing Shi Wanyu's farming to proceed smoothly. According to incomplete statistics, in recent years, driven by Zhu Wenli, the leech farming industry in Guocun Town has developed unprecedentedly. To date, the local net water surface for leech farming has exceeded 30,000 sq m. In addition, because pollution-free farming techniques are used throughout, the leeches are of high quality, attracting medicinal material dealers from Anguo in Hebei, Hehuachi in Sichuan, Bozhou in Anhui, Yulin in Guangxi and other places to come and purchase.
"As a college-graduate village official, starting a business is not only my own need, but also my duty to guide local people to prosperity. In the future, I will further expand the scale of leech farming and guide more people onto the path of prosperity through leech farming." Looking at the leech farm with a bumper harvest in sight, Zhu Wenli said with emotion, "Right now our scale is still limited. When the scale reaches a certain level, we will further explore more models for guiding farmers to prosperity, strive to cooperate directly with large pharmaceutical companies, and even through investment promotion make this place a production base for pharmaceutical companies, bringing more farming benefits and employment opportunities to farmers."