Farmer Song Dianyi of Wangjie Village generates returns from 1920 mu of land

    When the reporter met Song Dianyi, a farmer from Wangjie Village in Zhifang Township, he was busy in the fields, his dark face beaming with joy. He said: "Just 4 people took only 7 days to finish mechanized sowing of all 1920 mu of wheat. Now, the Party's favorable rural policies are increasing, and the returns from grain farming are getting higher and higher. This year I signed land transfer contracts with more than 3000 households in 7 villages, consolidating scattered land for large-scale planting and creating greater returns on scaled-up land." 
　　 
In 2004, Song Dianyi established Beida Seed Industry Company, mainly engaged in improved seed breeding. In the past two years, the state not only abolished the agricultural tax but also implemented direct subsidies for grain farmers, which let Song Dianyi see the business opportunity in farming, and he conceived the idea of renting land to grow improved seeds on a large scale. Song Dianyi wanted to farm more land, and the villagers also wanted to sublease their scattered land, so the two sides hit it off immediately. Consolidating household plots into larger tracts not only gave him a platform to display his talents on the land but also solved the villagers' problems. 
　　 
Wang Qingxian, the village Party branch secretary, told the reporter that Wangjie Village has 580 households and a total of more than 1800 mu of land, only 9 fen per person. Due to historical reasons, the village's plots are very scattered, far from the village, and low-lying; no household was willing to invest, yet the land could not be left idle, and after a busy year, when the accounts were reckoned, they still lost money. Take his own family: all 5 members had 4.5 mu of land scattered across more than 10 plots, which was very inconvenient to plant. In recent years, 80% of the village's farming households have been engaged in stone sawing, stone milling, stone carving and other stone processing and transport businesses; from this alone, the whole village's annual income is more than 30 million yuan. Farming is no longer the villagers' main occupation. When Song Dianyi proposed signing land transfer contracts with farmers at a rent of 300 yuan per mu per year to implement large-scale operation, he received an enthusiastic response from the farming households, and more than 500 households in the village signed 10-year sublease contracts with Song Dianyi. 
　　 
After Wang Zhongqi, a specialized stone processing household in the village, rented his family's 5 fen of land to Song Dianyi, he said happily: "I've finally shaken off a burden. This 5 fen of land is far from home, and machinery can't harvest it either. If I don't plant it, others laugh at me for leaving it idle; if I do plant it, it ties up labor, and reckoning the year, I still lose money. Now that the land is leased to the big grain farmer Song Dianyi, I can lead my family in specializing in stone processing, earning at least fifty or sixty thousand yuan a year." 
　　 
After the summer harvest ended, Song Dianyi immediately invested more than 100,000 yuan in large-scale infrastructure construction. He rented excavators to level the scattered land, build roads, dig drainage ditches and sink wells, and planted improved wheat seed on all of it. The company also hired a senior agronomist responsible for technical guidance. Song Dianyi did the accounts: "Now the company uses only 4 people to plant nearly two thousand mu of land, and everything from cultivation, sowing, fertilizing to harvesting has been fully mechanized. Growing one season of wheat requires an input of about 700 yuan per mu, and a yield of 1000 jin per mu is certain. A contract has already been signed with Jinan Yongfeng Seed Industry Company for the improved seed grown, which will buy it all at a price 20% higher per kg. The net income from just the one wheat season can reach 600,000 yuan a year. In autumn, we plan to plant improved soybean seed; soybeans require less input, only 200 yuan per mu, and at the current market price of 2 yuan per jin, with a yield of 350 jin of beans per mu, the whole year is expected to bring in 1.6 million yuan." Song Dianyi has already notified the township agricultural machinery station that next year he will fully equip tractors, rotary tillers, no-till seeders, straw return machines, wheat combine harvesters and other farm machinery to achieve full mechanization. He leased 1000 mu of land in Dongying, and the improved cotton he grew there also earned him a substantial income. 
　　 
Jiang Yubin, secretary of the township Party committee, said: "The state has increased its support for agriculture, grain prices keep rising, and government subsidies keep increasing; some farmers are willing to expand their land planting and engage in large-scale operation. Of the township's 62,000 mu of land, 13,000 mu has already been concentrated into the hands of big grain farmers through land transfer, among which 8 grain seed breeding bases have already taken shape."