Li Yundong makes over 2,000 yuan a month raising mealworms, a smart way to boost his income
In March this year, Ya'an City in Sichuan, relying on its agricultural science and technology park and adopting a "district-university cooperation" model, established the city's first university student entrepreneurship park to support university students in starting their own businesses.
During the summer vacation, Li Yundong traveled to Leshan, Zigong, Chengdu, Mianyang and other places to inspect mealworm farming operations, investigate the market sales of mealworms, and learn the business models of large-scale farmers. Li Yundong is a student majoring in Forest Resource Protection and Recreation (Ecotourism) at Sichuan Agricultural University. He has grand ambitions: he wants to build an ecological industrial chain farming operation on the basis of insect farming, and once it reaches a certain scale, turn it into an ecological farmhouse resort, offering the mealworm farming process as a tour for visitors, ultimately building mealworm farming into an ecological brand.
Li Yundong and his mealworms.
Seeking entrepreneurship through exploration
In an experimental class, Li Yundong ate insects deep-fried by his teacher and found they tasted good. He thought that insect farming might be a very promising industry. After that, he often went to the college's mealworm farming laboratory to study, asked his teachers about mealworm farming techniques, and began trial farming. After investigating the market conditions in Ya'an and Chengdu, Li Yundong and his friends set up an insect farming base together.
In March this year, Ya'an City, relying on its agricultural science and technology park and adopting a "district-university cooperation" model, established the city's first university student entrepreneurship park to support university students in starting their own businesses. When Li Yundong learned the news, he decided to move into the entrepreneurship park, scale up his mealworm farming, and recruited 7 friends to form an entrepreneurial team.
With his teachers' technical support and connections, Li Yundong used the money he had earned as an agent for a driving school as capital, borrowed another 1,500 yuan from his parents, and started his mealworm farming.
In the early days of farming, they encountered many technical problems. Due to improper rearing methods and failure to control the temperature for mealworm breeding and growth, many insects died. "I picked up dead insects for two days, and it broke my heart." Li Yundong took the dead mealworms back to school to consult his teachers, investigated the causes of death, and studied farming methods. A month later, by artificially altering environmental conditions, they successfully mastered mealworm farming techniques.
Li Yundong said that during the entrepreneurial process, their teachers gave them great support. Since the park is some distance from the school, they usually go there every other day. "The major I study is quite practice-oriented. With my teachers' help, entrepreneurship basically won't add to my coursework burden."
"Now we can make about 2,500 yuan a month," Li Yundong said. They are still farming on a small scale and do not have the means to transport mealworms themselves. He wants to apply for a university student entrepreneurship loan in his senior year to build his own sales channels.
Li Yundong is full of confidence in the market prospects for mealworms. Mealworms can be exported after deep processing, can serve as the foundation for ecological farming, and can also be used to set up a farming company in Chengdu, developing some workshops to rent to city children to satisfy their curiosity about farming.
Eleven teams and more than 30 people take part in entrepreneurship at the park
In early March this year, the Yucheng District Party Committee, the district government and Sichuan Agricultural University jointly founded the Ya'an City University Student Entrepreneurship Park. The park is planned to cover more than 400 mu, laying the foundation for Ya'an City to help 100 college graduates start businesses.
According to Li Kun, a staff member of the Yucheng District Entrepreneurship Park, 11 teams and more than 30 entrepreneurial university students have now entered the park, mainly from Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an Vocational and Technical College, Sichuan Minzu College and other universities. Entrepreneurial projects include electronic software, high-tech seedling cultivation and planting, and small animal farming.
Zhong Xueqin, deputy secretary of the Communist Youth League Yucheng District Committee, said that with the government's strong support for university student entrepreneurship, students are now very enthusiastic about starting businesses, and as the relevant department, they will certainly give them the greatest support in both hardware and software.