Ecological pig farming with herbal medicine and mountain spring water: he returned home to start a business and led his fellow villagers to prosperity

In Guomu Village, Xinglong Township, Dafang County, Li Yisheng's name is widely known. Local people all know that in order to take care of his parents and children at home, he resolutely gave up a monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan at a company in Ningbo, Zhejiang, and returned to his hometown to set up a pig farm.

Li Yisheng's farm is located on a mountaintop in Yanjiao Group of Guomu Village, covering more than 4,000 sq m. The farm is currently only in its initial stage, but he believes that as people pay more attention to healthy eating, the purely ecological Cola pigs he raises will definitely have a good market.

Returning home to start a business and care for family

After disinfecting in the disinfection room, this writer followed Li Yisheng into the pigpen. All the pigs Li Yisheng raises are the famous Cola pigs of Bijie. Compared with ordinary domestic pigs, this breed has stronger adaptability to high-altitude cold climates and stronger disease resistance, and it likes eating corn, weeds and so on, so the feeding cost is relatively low. Most importantly, its meat is delicious and its market prospects are broad.

According to him, construction of the farm began in July last year. This July, he spent more than 50,000 yuan to introduce more than 20 Cola pigs from Nayong and release them in the pens for breeding. "To build this pig farm, I have already invested more than 1 million yuan in the early stages for leveling the ground, building roads and constructing pigpens. Apart from the government's poverty alleviation funds, most of the money came from my own savings from working in Zhejiang in recent years."

Li Yisheng, 37 this year, began working away from home at the age of 19. Over the years he has been at a transformer factory in Ningbo, Zhejiang, growing from an ordinary worker into a technician. His salary also rose from several hundred yuan per month at the beginning to more than 10,000 yuan now. Even so, he was still determined to return home and start a business.

Li Yisheng said that although wages are higher outside, working for others is not a long-term solution. Moreover, as he grows older, although his income keeps increasing, being away from home makes his sense of debt and guilt toward his family ever more obvious. "At present, two children have just started junior high school, which is a critical period for their studies. After coming back, while doing breeding, I can also supervise their studies. My parents are also getting old. Returning home to start a business allows me to take better care of both the old and the young, killing two birds with one stone."

Ecological pig farming with herbal medicine and mountain spring water

When it comes to raising pigs, Li Yisheng, who was born in a farming family since childhood, is no stranger to it. Even though he worked away from home for many years, he picked it up quite smoothly. He said that the two main issues in pig farming are feeding and disease prevention. "Feeding four times a day must be timely, and the amount must also be controlled well. For epidemic prevention work, staff from the township agricultural service center now come to help. So far I have learned quite a lot of disease prevention knowledge from them. Even if I encounter problems I do not understand, one phone call and they will come to provide door-to-door service."

To solve the problem of pig feed, Li Yisheng specially planted 3 mu of Chinese herbal medicine - golden buckwheat. All the seeds were provided free of charge by the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Usually, after sowing the seeds, it can be harvested and fed to pigs in just over a month, and this Chinese herbal medicine can be cut 7 or 8 times a year. In winter, when there is no golden buckwheat, ryegrass can also be fed to the pigs, with no additives needed at all.

It is understood that the golden buckwheat planted by Li Yisheng is a new variety bred using wild golden buckwheat from Guizhou Province as parent material. It not only has the characteristics of high nutritional value, fast growth and high yield, but is also a forage grass favored by pigs, cattle, sheep, geese and other livestock and poultry. It can improve the immune capacity of livestock and poultry themselves and ensure the quality and safety of livestock and poultry products.

There is a spring on the mountain near the farm. To solve the pigs' drinking water problem, Li Yisheng specially laid pipes and diverted part of the water into the farm, truly letting the pigs drink mountain spring water.

Li Yisheng said that people's living standards have now improved and they pay more attention to the quality of food. Taking the ecological breeding path is more in line with current development trends. He believes that through scientific and ecological breeding, it will certainly be possible to provide the market with high-quality and safe meat.

Expanding the scale to enrich the villagers

A few days ago, the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office held the 2015 provincial-level demonstration class training for the "Yulu Plan - Training of Leaders in Getting Rich in Poor Villages" in Xingyi City. As a representative of returning home to start a business, Li Yisheng attended this training. He said that after a week of theoretical study and visits, his horizons were greatly broadened and he also learned quite a lot of advanced management techniques. After returning from the training, he became even more determined to expand the scale of his farm.

"This site of mine is about the scale to accommodate 1,000 pigs. After the farm grows stronger, if funds are sufficient, I hope to cooperate with nearby farming households, provide them with piglets, and buy them back at market price once the farmers meet the required conditions for disease prevention, feed and breeding methods, so that the people around me can shake off poverty and move toward moderate prosperity as soon as possible," Li Yisheng told this writer.

Li Yisheng estimates that by this winter, the current more than 20 pigs can give birth. Calculating 7 piglets per sow, the whole farm will have more than 160 piglets. In addition, it takes one year for a pig to go from piglet to market, and it can grow to about 270 jin. If calculated at the current live pig price of 16 yuan per jin, 160 pigs could sell for nearly 700,000 yuan next year.

As for sales channels, Li Yisheng is not worried at all. On the one hand, he believes in the quality of the Cola pigs he raises. On the other hand, one of his relatives has opened several large restaurants in Guangdong. "At worst, if they really cannot be sold locally, I will take them to Guangdong and sell them to my relative."

Now, Li Yisheng's greatest wish is to spend another two years continuing to strengthen the farm. By then, he will be fully able to do as he said, leading the surrounding villagers to escape poverty together and become a true leader in getting rich.