Longcheng farmer Wang Ziyang shares his experience of growing asparagus

    My name is Wang Ziyang, I am 64 years old this year, and I am an ordinary farmer. My family has 5 members and a total of 10 mu of irrigated land. In the past we always made a living by growing corn and wheat. After deducting the cost of seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the net income per mu was only two or three hundred yuan. Sometimes we also changed our planting methods, adopting forms such as wheat intercropped with corn, cotton intercropped with watermelon, and wheat intercropped with cotton, but because the planting scale was small and market prices were unstable, we still could not earn much money. Starting in 2005, the district government did everything possible for the sake of us farmers getting rich, introduced an asparagus production and processing project, and adopted the form of company plus base plus farmer households, carrying out contract farming. This brought relatively big changes to my family's income. The income per mu rose all at once from several hundred yuan to several thousand yuan, and under my influence, many surrounding farmer households also planted asparagus and got on the road to prosperity. 

    At the beginning, I also did not dare believe that asparagus could earn big money, but through the patient guidance of some departments of the district government and township government as well as the technicians of the asparagus company, training classes, and organizing farmer households to visit and learn elsewhere, I gradually realized the many advantages of growing asparagus. In May 2005, I planted 4.5 mu of asparagus in my own contracted field. According to the company's technical requirements, 3000 plants were planted per mu, using the form of wide ridges with double rows, and more than 10,000 kg of farmyard manure was applied per mu. I also intercropped fast soybeans in the asparagus field. After a year of careful management, by the end of the year a total of more than 300 jin of soybeans had been harvested per mu, with an income of more than 480 yuan. Before winter began I watered enough freezing water, and in spring 2006 I promptly removed the asparagus mother stems, prepared the land and cleaned the field. In late April, the tender fresh asparagus broke through the soil. Harvesting began on May 1 and continued until the end of June. The 4.5 mu of asparagus produced a total of more than 5000 jin and sold for more than 12,000 yuan, equivalent to an income of more than 2600 yuan per mu, three to four times the usual income from growing corn. 

    Because I tended the farmland rather carefully and the income from growing asparagus was relatively high, I became a model among the district's asparagus growers. Farmer households from every township (town) in the district came to my asparagus plot to visit and learn, and I did not hold anything back in teaching the detailed points of growing techniques to the farmers. Even farmers from Inner Mongolia, Fuxin, Beipiao, and Sunjiawan and Talaogao in Shuangta District came to visit and learn. For a time, my asparagus field became the district's demonstration field, and I also became a volunteer explainer. Every time people came to learn, I carefully and patiently explained things to them. From last year to now, I have received 60 groups of visitors, each time more than 30 people, and at the largest time more than 70 people at once. Leaders also came many times to inspect. At the beginning of the year, Chaoyang TV Station came to record high-yield asparagus cultivation techniques, and as the explaining teacher I also appeared on television. Last winter and this spring, I was again invited by Tianying Vegetable Company to voluntarily train farmers across the district in asparagus growing techniques. Using my own personal experience, I explained asparagus growing techniques to farmer households in person. Whether in the classroom or in the fields, I earnestly passed on practical experience. Because we are all farmers, it is easy to communicate, and the farmers rather liked listening to my lectures and rather trusted me. Whenever farmers asked about the methods of growing asparagus, I would without reservation introduce the experience I had accumulated to them. Under my influence, many more farmers planted asparagus this year and achieved relatively good results. 

    I am an ordinary farmer. I think asparagus is a relatively good industry, but to understand it, believe in it, and grow it well, we cannot do without the strong support of governments at all levels, cannot do without the pre-production, in-production and post-production services of processing enterprises, and even more cannot do without the mutual passing on of experience among us asparagus growers. At the same time, I also want to organize us asparagus growers to establish an asparagus industry technical association, to study together and help each other, so that asparagus growing forms an industry culture that enters thousands of households and leads farmers to become rich together. At present, the district's asparagus planting area has already reached more than 5000 mu.