Ecological farming and breeding can also make you rich: Dong Dafu does not follow the old greenhouse path
On September 18, the reporter walked into Dong Dafu's vegetable planting base. Seasonal vegetables such as green tomatoes, tender cucumbers and slender green beans were scattered in an orderly way across the fields. "There are no high-tech machines for growing vegetables, no greenhouses; everything uses farmyard manure, ecological, green and organic," Dong Dafu said with a smile.
He not only grows vegetables, but also raises pigs and chickens. For more than a year, he has continuously explored breeding techniques and expanded his breeding scale, and has been called a "breeding expert" by relatives and friends.
Realizing the value of life
In early 2008, he went out to work and was highly appreciated by the boss at a construction site. But he wanted to return home to build a career, so he resolutely declined the generous treatment and went back to his hometown to start a business. In Group 1 of Baihe Village, Nanjiang Town, Nanjiang County, he established the Fuqin Livestock and Poultry Farm. At present, it has 100 pigs, more than 1,000 free-range chickens, guinea fowl, Silkie chickens and other poultry, and 30 mu of vegetables, with an annual income of more than 500,000 yuan.
When he first returned to his hometown,a business projecthad been troubling him all along. By chance, while wandering around the village, he found that large tracts of village land were left barren. He felt great pain at this, thinking it was truly a pity to waste such resources, and the idea of developing an ecological breeding business sprouted in his mind. At the same time, after a great deal of market research, he reached a conclusion: many people now like original ecological products, which fits the psychology of mass consumption and is a good project for becoming wealthy. So he used his own 10 mu of land and contracted more than 20 mu of nearby farmers' land, planting rural seasonal vegetables in contiguous plots.
From layman to breeding expert
He gets up after four in the morning to pick vegetables, and after six he rides a three-wheeled motor cart for half an hour to sell vegetables at the market. After finishing selling vegetables at noon, he rides the three-wheeled motor cart to a nearby tofu factory to buy okara. When he gets home, he immediately ferments the okara.
After a brief rest, he shoulders a hoe and goes to the fields to water and weed the vegetables, while also cleaning the chicken coops and pig pens. He stays busy like this until about nine at night before eating dinner. After the meal he does not rest either; instead, he cooks the next day's food for the pigs, and only finishes and goes to sleep at one in the morning. Calculated this way, his rest time is less than three hours.
Talking about his immature planting and breeding techniques and the losses he suffered, Dong Dafu immediately thought of the loss in June last year: "That time I planted one mu of tomatoes. I did not listen to a friend's advice and did not clear the drainage ditches in the field. Unexpectedly, June was rainy, and after a few days all the tomatoes were soaked and rotted in the field and had to be thrown away entirely. The loss was considerable."
After many sleepless nights, he gradually mastered knowledge related to raising chickens, raising pigs and growing vegetables. In his room, the reporter saw stack after stack of breeding books that he had thumbed until they were dog-eared.
Expanding scale to boost income
After mastering a set of techniques, Dong Dafu began to expand the scale and established a mutual-aid breeding cooperative to lead surrounding farmers to wealth together. At the same time, he successfully taught himself the fermentation breeding technique for okara feed. At the end of 2014, he invested in establishing the Nanjiang County Fuqin Livestock and Poultry Farm, built 300 m of access road, renovated 600 sq m of pens, raised more than 100 fattening pigs and hatched more than 500 chicks. He led more than 30 villagers to join the mutual-aid breeding cooperative, achieving nearby and local employment.
His neighbor Dong Dakui was sick year-round and could hardly afford medical expenses. "Now I work at his farm. Every day I just clean the chicken coops and pig pens, and when I finish I rest. The work is flexible, and I get a considerable income of 150 yuan a day, plus two meals in the morning and at noon," Dong Dakui said with gratitude in his words.
"Within five years, I plan to invest 10 million yuan to build 1 standardized vegetable demonstration base, 2 under-forest chicken farms, a 1,000 sq m organic ecological pig farm and a 500 sq m agritainment restaurant," Dong Dafu said confidently when talking about his development plans.