The Tomato King Gets Rich by Mining Gold from a Sea of Books

    Wannian Village in Tai'an Township, Dongxing District, Neijiang City, Sichuan, is a well-known specialized tomato-growing village, where the tomato varieties introduced by the vegetable farmers reach a per-mu yield of as much as 8,000 kg. Here, "Tomato King" Jiang Yinyue is even more of a celebrity. Over 24 years, through continuous learning and constant experimentation, he has kept breaking the local record for average net income per mu from growing tomatoes, and has also become the local vegetable farmers' leader in learning science and applying science.

One Book Brings a Bumper Harvest

In the spring of 1985, 17-year-old Jiang Yinyue, having graduated from junior high school, farmed at home. His father set aside two fen of land for him to try planting. "1 jin of tomatoes can be exchanged for 1 jin of rice." A bit of village "chitchat" made Jiang Yinyue eager to try. That year, he tried planting two fen of land with tomatoes.

However, due to a lack of agricultural technical knowledge, the two fen of land yielded only just over 100 kg of tomatoes.

"You never know how much you need a book until you need it!" Jiang Yinyue understood that without technology, no matter how valuable the crop, one still could not make money. After that, every time Jiang Yinyue went to the city he would visit bookstores, and every time he would buy books related to tomato-growing techniques.

Jiang Yinyue expanded the original two fen of land to half a mu. Because he adopted mulching film technology, that year the half-mu plot reached a yield of more than 2,000 kg, with an income of 1,400 yuan.

One Leader Brings a Whole Industry to Life

Jiang Yinyue, having achieved a small success, did not forget to keep learning. Over several years, he subscribed to more than ten newspapers and magazines, including Sichuan Rural Daily, Chinese Vegetable Cultivation, and Pest and Disease Control, not only learning and mastering various planting techniques, but also being able to learn about market trends as soon as they emerged.

In the spring of 1990, Jiang Yinyue once again expanded his planting area, trying small-arch-shed cultivation of tomatoes, and seven fen of land achieved an output value of more than 3,000 yuan.

Although the bumper harvests brought by new technology let Jiang Yinyue taste sweet success, the dry climate of the hilly region, "disaster in nine years out of ten, drought in nine disasters out of ten," was always a difficult problem plaguing local planting.

"How can we cope with drought without affecting yield?" Good at learning, he again found the answer in books - a technique called greenhouse paddy-field cultivation could control plant growth by controlling the greenhouse temperature, achieving the effect of advancing spring and delaying autumn, and by exploiting the "time difference," increasing income by over a thousand yuan per mu; in addition, this technique provided crops with a relatively independent growing space, not only improving the crops' ability to cope with natural disasters but also greatly improving the effectiveness of pest and disease control.

At present, Jiang Yinyue's tomato planting area has expanded to 1.8 mu, and tomatoes alone can bring an annual income of more than 30,000 yuan. Under his leadership, more and more local vegetable farmers are accepting and using new technology, and Wannian Village has also become a specialized tomato-growing village known far and wide.