The entrepreneurial story of Tong Xiu, a powerhouse woman in breeding
On July 28, the reporter came to the Sanyuan Piglet Breeding Farm in Dongcheng, Lichuan City, and saw workers renovating two old pig houses into "150 model" standard pig houses. The person in charge, Tong Xiu, said: At present, the breeding farm has more than 300 improved-breed sows, produces more than 6,000 piglets per year, raises and markets more than 3,500 commercial pigs per year, and has annual sales revenue of about 1.5 million yuan.
Tong Xiu, a young and promising leader, has struggled for 8 springs and autumns on the road of pig farming. Over these 8 years, she started with 25 sows. In 2007, highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome once destroyed all her efforts. Then she rebuilt the farm, embarked on the path of scientific pig farming, and has now developed it into the largest pig breeding base in the Dongcheng Subdistrict Office. The great ups and downs of life made her endure too much bitterness and joy.
In 2000, Tong Xiu was laid off and joined the ranks of migrant workers, but she thought this was never a long-term solution, so she began to explore a new path to wealth. After more than a month of market research, she found that the breeding industry was a new field worth exploring and trying. After setting her sights on the pig market, she acted as soon as she decided. In early 2002, Tong Xiu scraped together 30,000 yuan and founded the Dongcheng Sanyuan Piglet Breeding Farm, introduced 25 breeding pigs locally, and that year bred more than 280 piglets.
As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. Due to a lack of experience and technology in the breeding industry, the difficulties she encountered when truly engaging in breeding can be imagined. When funds were needed, she borrowed from relatives and friends; when experience was needed, she accumulated it bit by bit in practice. Relying on a drive to dig in and a tenacity, Tong Xiu overcame one difficulty after another and made pig farming smoother and better. By the end of 2006, her cumulative investment had reached more than 4.8 million yuan. However, fortune is unpredictable. In 2007, her pig farm was hit by highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, causing devastating losses, and not a single pig was left in the pig houses. Just when she was in despair, the Party's policies and the government's warmth helped her regain confidence. Using government subsidies and self-raised funds, she introduced more than 200 improved-breed sows from other places in batches. Through her scientific management and careful raising, the breeding farm reached its current scale.
From then on, Tong Xiu made learning advanced technology a required course for herself. In September 2003, as the pilot work of modern distance education for rural Party members and cadres was officially launched, distance education resources and the internet provided her with a platform for looking up breeding information. In recent years, she has used internet resources and combined them with local realities to successfully apply many modern breeding technologies among farming households, including "limited-position feeding, high-bed nursery care, early weaning, artificial insemination, and water-curtain cooling."
At present, the pig market is sluggish, and Tong Xiu's farm has encountered a development bottleneck again. She applied to the employment department for a small guaranteed loan of 200,000 yuan to repair the pens and prepare for the coming peak period. She has also established cooperative relations with schools such as Tuanbao Middle School, providing them with piglets, feed, and technology, which both broadened the market and allowed many middle school students to eat safe meat.
"A single flower does not make spring; a hundred flowers blooming together fill the garden with spring." Tong Xiu became rich through hard entrepreneurship and scientific breeding, but she did not forget her fellow villagers. Tong Xiu developed farming households through a "three-responsibility commitment contract" covering credit sales, technology, and buyback, and promoted technology with the idea of "develop one household, consolidate one household, and then drive a whole area," leading more than 50 farming households to raise pigs scientifically and increasing nearby farmers' income by more than 500,000 yuan each year.
To make travel convenient for the surrounding people, she also contributed 10,000 yuan to build a village-group road; to keep the villagers' rice fields from being polluted, she contributed more than 5,000 yuan to build sewage pipes; to let the people drink clean and safe water, she contributed more than 8,000 yuan to dig a well more than 20 m deep; and to let one industry drive another, she often sent manure from the pig farm to the villagers' orchards, vegetable plots, and rice fields. Therefore, she is highly praised by the local people.
In September 2007, at the request of many farming households, Tong Xiu established the Dongcheng Pig Breeding Professional Cooperative, and she was elected as its chairman and legal representative. At present, the cooperative has more than 20 official members. The cooperative adopts an operating form in which leading enterprises connect with bases and bases lead farming households, providing reliable guarantees for the promotion of breeding technology. A service system integrating "supply, technology, information, and sales" is gradually being established. According to a sample survey, at present the breeding cost per pig within the cooperative has decreased by 56 yuan compared with before, which can increase the income of farming households throughout the professional cooperative by more than 300,000 yuan each year.
Tong Xiu has struggled for nearly 10 years. Because of her outstanding contributions, the common people affectionately call her the "Pig Farming King." She has also been rated successively as a "City-level Woman Able Person in the Dual Study and Dual Comparison campaign" and a "Prefecture-level Woman Able Person in Rural Wealth Creation and Transfer," and has been awarded honorary titles such as "Outstanding Large Breeding Household," "Prefecture-level Outstanding Rural Practical Talent," and "Provincial-level Outstanding Rural Practical Talent."