Understory farming cycle model helps farmers increase income and get rich

In September, Xiaobaide Village is full of life. In Xiaobaide Village, Daqiao Township, Shiping County, under the lush bayberry trees, flocks of lovely ecological chickens leisurely breathe the fresh air while pecking at insects and wild vegetables in the grass. This is the understory ecological chicken farm of Ke Shaoyun, a villager of Xiaobaide in Daqiao Township. Bidding farewell to the traditional confined rearing model, the understory ecological chicken farm has become a “green bank” for farmers to increase income and get rich.

Understory chickens, a road to wealth Five years ago, Ke Shaoyun, who had gone out to work, took a fancy to the advantages of good air and no pollution in understory chicken farming, and explored a circular economy development model combining planting with breeding. The fruit tree forest provided a free foraging area for the ecological chickens, and the manure excreted by the ecological chickens fertilized the fruit tree forest, achieving two benefits at once. From being unknown at the beginning to now being a well-known large livestock and poultry breeding household in Daqiao Township, Ke Shaoyun's family income has also undergone earth-shaking changes, with annual income reaching more than 100,000 yuan. The chicken farm has become one of the demonstration sites of Daqiao Township's “Hundred Villages, Thousand Households, Ten Thousand Yuan Income Increase Action.” Ke Shaoyun said that nowadays people have increasingly high requirements for food, not only wanting to eat enough and eat well, but also wanting to eat safely and with peace of mind. Because chickens raised under the forest move around frequently, are fed with cornmeal, and eat insects and grasses in the forest, they have strong disease resistance and are very healthy, and are in short supply in the market.

Cooperative, driving the industry With continuous development, in 2014, with the policy support of the township Party committee and government, Ke Shaoyun coordinated a loan of 50,000 yuan and joined with 56 members contributing funds as shares to establish the Jiaxin Breeding Professional Cooperative. The cooperative implements “four unifications” services, namely unified breeding, unified epidemic prevention, unified feed supply, and unified product sales. To strengthen the standardization of breeders, first, members are issued breeding log sheets, laying hen raising manuals, and technical service tracking cards, providing farmers with free consultation, technical services, information exchange, and free distribution of disease prevention and control materials. Second, in response to problems such as changes in the breeding environment and the increasing complexity of epidemics brought about by the continuous expansion of breeding scale, the township agricultural science station and veterinary station regularly send technical personnel deep into breeding bases to provide technical guidance, disease prevention, and other technical training to breeders; third, cooperative members are organized to go to areas with better breeding benefits for exchange and learning, to learn from each other's strengths. At present, the cooperative is preparing a plan to establish a major disease risk fund. Through the establishment of the fund, it will specifically address losses caused to breeders by major diseases and further reduce breeding risks. The cooperative gives full play to the advantages of coordinated action and promptly solves problems encountered in breeding.

Now, the Jiaxin Livestock and Poultry Breeding Professional Cooperative has more than 40 mu of ecological chicken-raising forest, with more than 20,000 ecological chickens marketed each year, achieving economic benefits of more than 1 million yuan and helping members increase income by more than 30,000 yuan each year, successfully opening a new path to wealth through the circular development of the ecological industry.