Experience-sharing by Wang Guangyuan, an expert melon and vegetable grower

    Loufangzi Village in Quzi Town, located at the junction of the three townships of Quzi, Hedao and Tianchi, is a well-known protected melon and vegetable production base in Huan County. The village has built a total of 64 concrete-component sheds, 10 solar greenhouses, 80 steel-frame sheds and 391 mu of arched sheds; the village plants more than a thousand mu of melons and vegetables annually, generating an output value of more than 1.7 million yuan, with an average income of more than 6,000 yuan per mu. Whenever these figures come up, everyone mentions one person: the man who first led the way in building melon and vegetable greenhouses in the village, selflessly helped his fellow villagers, and got rich by growing greenhouse melons and vegetables, Wang Guangyuan. 

Wang Guangyuan, 32 years old, has only a junior high school education and is a farmer in Loufangzi Village. Wang Guangyuan had always farmed at home, yet the rural life of rising at dawn and resting at sunset often left him feeling depressed and helpless; especially after a year of hard work, there was little left beyond basic living expenses. Whenever a family member fell ill, the family could not afford the cost and had to borrow money everywhere, eventually piling up heavy debts. The family's financial hardship and the bitterness of life pushed him to think seriously: why sit with a "golden rice bowl" and beg for food? Loufangzi Village lies in the upper reaches of the Hedao River, with exceptionally favorable irrigation conditions, so why not turn this resource advantage into wealth?

    The opportunity finally came. In 2000, the town Party committee and the village Party branch called on the people to adjust the agricultural structure, publicizing the advanced examples of people in Mengjiazhai, Gaozhaigou and elsewhere in the city who had escaped poverty and become rich by building greenhouses and growing vegetables. At the time, however, most farmers merely listened; very few took actual action. But Wang Guangyuan kept it firmly in mind and made several trips out to conduct on-the-spot investigations and inquiries. When he became convinced that growing greenhouse melons and vegetables was an effective path to wealth, he made up his mind to study melon and vegetable cultivation techniques hard, decided to make use of the abundant water resources, build greenhouses and grow melons and vegetables, and surely blaze a new path to prosperity.

    Starting in 2000, Wang Guangyuan was the first to build a bamboo-pole arched shed on his own contracted land and began exploring the cultivation of greenhouse melons and vegetables. In the first year he tried growing greenhouse melons; because he sowed directly, the seedlings emerged slowly, management could not keep up, the crop reached the market late, and the price was low. In addition, the melon ripening season was marked by continuous rain, so a year of effort basically earned no money. The villagers mocked him, his family grumbled, and he felt very bitter inside.

    The next year, Wang Guangyuan continued his trial planting and promptly sought advice from county agricultural technicians. He selected suitable greenhouse varieties early, used his own heated brick bed as a seedling bed to raise seedlings early, laid plastic film inside the greenhouse for double-film cultivation, and strengthened management. Wang Guangyuan's hard work finally received its due reward: because the melons that year reached the market early and fetched a good price, he achieved fairly good returns. The comparison between the two years' incomes made him deeply aware of the role of science and technology in agricultural production and in increasing farmers' incomes. For this reason, he bought a large number of technical books and materials and began studying protected melon and vegetable cultivation techniques late into the night. He even took the books to the fields and studied them in combination with practice. Through study, he gradually mastered a production model suited to local melon and vegetable growth. Not only that, he also became friends with the technicians at the county and township agricultural technology stations, promptly seeking their advice at every stage of production. 

He drew closer to the old farmers with rich experience in growing melons and vegetables, learning humbly in the fields and during the production season. Over several years, he learned the theoretical knowledge of melon and vegetable cultivation techniques, mastered the techniques of growing melons and vegetables, and worked out a set of practical experience in seedling raising, transplanting, grafting and management suited to local melon and vegetable production management. 

In October 2004, the village was designated by the province and city as a village for the whole-village advancement poverty alleviation project, and was designated by the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee as a assisted village. It put forward the development model of "melons and vegetables in the river valley, forests and fruit on the plateau, grass and livestock in the mountain areas, and daylily throughout the village." It introduced concrete-component shed vegetable-growing technology from Shaanxi and built 64 concrete-component sheds, 10 solar greenhouses and 80 steel-frame greenhouses. He seized this second rare opportunity and was among the first to build 3 concrete-frame sheds (3 mu in total) and add 10 bamboo-pole greenhouses (2 mu in total). Relying on his outstanding cultivation techniques, he carefully grew melons and vegetables; over 3 years the income from growing greenhouse melons and vegetables reached more than 90,000 yuan, which not only paid off his previous debts but also made him a well-known melon and vegetable growing expert in the village and a model of becoming rich by growing melons and vegetables. 

After becoming rich by growing greenhouse melons and vegetables, Wang Guangyuan was not satisfied. He realized that although he had made money by starting to grow melons and vegetables early, having to both grow and sell was truly too hard, and it was greatly affected by the market. The small household production model of a single family could no longer meet the needs of modern agricultural development; more people had to be mobilized to engage in the melon and vegetable growing industry, and some large growers had to be brought together to form an industrial base and attract distant customers to come and buy the products.