The Road to Wealth of Cattle-Raising Queen Jia Likun

From migrant worker to small boss of an aquatic products company, then to further studies in Japan; from manager of a real estate brokerage company to CEO of an investment company - all of this is enough to make many people envy Jia Likun. But she, a woman, insisted on becoming a "cowherd" and led more than 10,000 rural folks to prosperity together.

Jia Likun with her beloved cattle (file photo)

8 years after graduation, migrant worker becomes CEO

Jia Likun, 36 years old, from Tianbei Town, Jiaohe City. After graduating from Dalian University of Foreign Languages in 1994, she worked as a Japanese translator at an aquatic products export company, and in less than two years, she became a key business staff member.

In 1996, she and a friend jointly established their own aquatic products export company. Gradually she felt her mind was becoming increasingly "empty," so she went to Japan to study. 

After returning to China, she happened to hear that real estate developers must entrust real estate brokerage companies to handle sales, so she went to Beijing to establish a real estate brokerage company. Later, she found that she lacked high-level management concepts, so she applied to work as an employee at a Japanese kabushiki kaisha and often participated in corporate manager and team training.

In 2002, Jia Likun returned to China and established an investment consulting company in Beijing, serving as CEO.

The female boss decides to become a "cowherd"

While she was running the investment consulting company, leaders of Jiaohe City approached her multiple times, hoping she would return to her hometown to invest.

While in Japan, a client invited her to taste Japanese Wagyu beef. The beef melted in the mouth, exceptionally tender and fresh. One and a half liang of Wagyu beef was priced at the equivalent of 500 yuan! At that time, she thought of engaging in high-grade beef cattle breeding after returning to China.

After returning to China, she found that much of the high-grade beef in China was imported. After consulting livestock experts, she learned that high-grade beef requires good beef cattle breeds, and breeding a good breed might take decades or even over a hundred years. If good introduced breeds were used to improve local cattle, each cow would require an investment of at least 30,000 yuan, and the meat quality after crossbreeding was still unknown.

But Jia Likun took the risk, transferred her company to someone else, brought her capital back to her hometown of Tianbei Town, Jiaohe City, and established Jilin City Tianyi Gangshan Wagyu Breeding Co., Ltd.

"Lying in wait" for nearly half a month moves expert

She knew nothing about cattle raising and was stumped when it came to building cattle sheds. The fully automated breeding system she had seen in Japan did not exist in China. She found an old expert from the Ministry of Agriculture who researched high-grade beef cattle breeding and "lay in wait" at his door for nearly half a month, ultimately moving the expert, who agreed to help her build cattle sheds.

The Jiaohe City government not only gave her many preferential policies, but the Jiaohe City Animal Husbandry Administration also established an expert group and organized more than 40 veterinarians to help her conduct crossbreeding experiments. In October 2003, she and the experts selected 450 Simmental cattle, 400 Charolais cattle, and 150 Yanbian Yellow cattle locally, crossbred them with frozen semen from Black Wagyu introduced from Japan, and specially built a 30,000 sq m cattle farm.

Invested over 30 million with no returns, still persisted

In January 2005, she invested over 7 million yuan to purchase all of more than 1,000 crossbred calves. The cattle farm became a hodgepodge of crossbred cattle. After crossbreeding, the cattle had mixed coat colors and uneven quality. Experts reminded her that if she stopped now, she could reduce her losses somewhat; if she persisted for 28 months until fattening and slaughter, these more than 1,000 cattle would require at least another 20 million yuan in investment, and this money would likely be "thrown down the drain."

But she did not give up. Every day she played music for the cattle, massaged them, and brushed their coats. The daily food standard for one cow was 40 yuan!

In September 2007, the first batch of cattle crossbred with Simmental was ready for slaughter, but only 30% could reach high-grade beef standards, resulting in a direct loss of over 10 million yuan. Two months later, Charolais crossbred cattle were slaughtered, and the results were not much better than the Simmental cattle. She had already invested over 30 million yuan with no returns.

On December 18, 2007, the first crossbred Yanbian Yellow cattle was slaughtered and, after acid removal, brought out. No one dared to make the first cut for grade evaluation. Jia Likun was so nervous she did not dare to look and returned to her office. If the evaluation results were still bad, she would lose everything.

At 10:30, the results came out: 70% of the beef from the 150 crossbred Yanbian Yellow cattle reached high-grade beef standards and could rival Japanese Wagyu beef!

Leading tens of thousands of farming households to prosperity together

Today, Tianyi Gangshan Wagyu Breeding Co., Ltd. has signed purchase agreements for crossbred cattle with more than 10,000 farming households in Jiaohe City, providing free insemination, free breeding technical guidance, and timely buyback, minimizing the breeding costs and risks for farming households.

Since 2003, Tianyi Gangshan Wagyu Breeding Co., Ltd. has purchased more than 6,000 Changbai Mountain Black calves from farming households. Each 6-month-old calf brings farmers an income of 2,500 yuan to 3,000 yuan, an increase of 1,300 yuan to 1,500 yuan compared to raising ordinary local calves. Local farming households breeding and raising "Changbai Mountain Black cattle" have achieved a net income of over 24 million yuan, an increase of over 9 million yuan compared to raising ordinary yellow cattle of the same age.