Hu Ping of Dafang County gets rich through under-forest ecological breeding

In February 2008, Lihua Township in Dafang County began carrying out collective forest tenure reform. Before the reform, the mountain forests were managed uniformly by the village committee as a collective, and villagers had no right to develop them; they could only make a living from very little arable land, a small amount of breeding, and working away from home. Hu Ping was a typical example. He had repaired motorcycles, sold home appliances, and also worked away from home. In 2008, having graduated from high school and drifted outside for 4 years, he heard that developing specialty breeding in other provinces had good prospects, so he resolutely decided to return home and start a business. His return coincided with the forest reform. Hu Ping, quick-witted and daring, focused on making the most of forest land and successfully used under-forest resources to develop fly maggot chicken farming, opening up a new path of under-forest ecological breeding.

Contracting forest land, setting sail to engage in breeding

Hu Ping, who has just passed his thirties, is a villager of Lihua Township in Dafang County. People who know Hu Ping all say he has a stubborn temper: he dares to think what others do not dare to think, and dares to do what others do not dare to do, but he really did make something of it. He had long worked at chicken farms in Guangdong and Hebei, accumulating a great deal of breeding experience. Just as the forest reform was underway, he returned to the village. After hearing about the good policies now in place, he was unwilling to leave again. In 2008, he scraped together 4,000 yuan and went to Handan, Hebei to visit and learn on site the techniques of fly maggot breeding and fly maggot chicken farming. After returning, disregarding his family's opposition, he leased a stretch of mountain forest in Malongyan, Lihua Township, and resolutely carried out chain-style under-forest breeding of fly maggot chickens, pigs and fish. Because the native chickens fed with fly maggots have higher protein content and are rich in nutrition, the eggs and native chickens are deeply favored by consumers, and the price is 1.5 times the price of ordinary chicken farms. He used shrub forest for free-range rearing and placed water troughs around the chicken houses. Because it is far from the village, pathogens do not easily enter the mountain. The native chickens are raised free-range and mainly eat fly maggots, absorbing the nutritional components of fly maggots while also strengthening disease resistance. Such native chickens have good quality and high-quality meat and eggs, save feed and have low cost. In order to ensure the supply of fly maggots, he also expanded the scale of pig farming and learned artificial insemination techniques, providing high-quality semen and on-site artificial insemination services for the whole township and even some townships in the whole county, and became a designated semen source supply base for the Dafang County Animal Husbandry Bureau.

Running it painstakingly, planning carefully for development

Through study, research and personal experimentation, Hu Ping has now become an expert in raising fly maggots, chickens and pigs, and has mastered a relatively mature set of technical essentials. Whenever people come to visit his breeding farm and learn breeding techniques from him, he always patiently explains: First, carefully select breeds, introducing from Guangxi, Guiyang and other places black-footed speckled meat chicken chicks that adapt to local climate conditions, are convenient for under-forest breeding, have good meat quality, a high survival rate, strong disease resistance and fast growth. Second, pay attention to epidemic prevention. During the chick stage, give one fowl pox vaccine; the other five vaccinations are all done by dissolving frozen medicines in water and vaccinating the chickens through drinking water, which is simple and labor-saving. Also disinfect the pens regularly, cut off various sources of infection, and prevent easily occurring and major diseases such as avian influenza and fowl plague. Third, classify reasonably: chicks are raised in cages indoors, and after being taken off heat, growing chickens are classified by size and raised free-range. Fourth, scientific feeding: mainly fly maggots mixed with good chicken feed, with matching drinking water, and then relying on the chickens' free movement to eat grass and look for insects. Fifth, rotate plots: feed one batch of chickens in young forest and sparse forest plots, and after they are ready for market, move to another patch of forest to raise the next batch, so as to facilitate regeneration of the under-forest grass. On the basis of mature technology, he seized the momentum and expanded the breeding scale. At present, Hu Ping has invested a total of 150,000 yuan, built 30 chicken houses and pig pens, brought electricity to the breeding farm, built a biogas digester and a water storage tank, purchased special feed hangers and a complete set of artificial insemination equipment, and bought a dual-purpose passenger-and-cargo vehicle to transport feed and handle sales. To expand the scale, with the help and planning of relevant experts and leaders, Hu Ping initially established his own market brand——maggot chicken. To open up sales channels, Hu Ping taught himself to use a computer, printed large numbers of leaflets, and went to restaurants in Guiyang, Bijie and other places to distribute them. On holidays and market days, he also mobilized his family to go to the streets together to hand out leaflets. Drenched in sweat, he always smiled and said to the people at the market: “If you do not try my ‘maggot chicken’, and do not eat my ‘maggot chicken eggs’, you will regret it!”

Hard work pays off. He finally opened up sales channels. From Guiyang to Bijie, many restaurants came specially to order maggot chickens and maggot chicken eggs, and many butchers ran to his breeding farm to order market-ready pigs, completely changing the earlier situation of going door to door to sell. From 2008 to 2010, over three years, the breeding farm sent more than 1,000 pigs to market, more than 8,000 live chickens, and more than 900 piglets. Relying on his own intelligence and painstaking management, Hu Ping has grown from an initial investment of 150,000 yuan to a breeding scale with 400,000 yuan in fixed assets and more than 100,000 yuan in working capital.

Joining hands and helping one another, uniting villagers to strive for moderate prosperity

Hu Ping is now wealthy, but he has not forgotten that he is a genuine farmer. He often says: “It means nothing if I alone have money; only when all my fellow villagers live good lives can it count as being wealthy.” From then on, he took leading the masses to common prosperity as his duty and goal. Because the market was rising and the benefits looked good, many people around him spontaneously came to Hu Ping's under-forest chicken breeding base to observe and learn, and asked to buy chicks to raise. Hu Ping took the initiative to go to the market and bought back more than 6,000 chicks in total for the villagers from Guangxi, Guiyang and other places. After greenhouse brooding and taking them off heat, he sold them to local people at cost price, driving more than 200 forest farming households in surrounding villages and groups such as Yingpan, Songlin and Guangmu to develop under-forest breeding. Each household increased income by more than 3,000 yuan, and his breeding farm thus became a demonstration site for under-forest breeding and a demonstration site for distance education in Lihua Township, forming a new pattern in which the demonstration site drives forest farmers to develop under-forest breeding.