Yang Yongjie: "Langzhong's Number One Grain Grower" Is Busy and Happy

    While many young and middle-aged people in rural areas pin their hopes of prosperity on the world beyond the mountains, and while quite a few choose to grow cash crops, he chose to lease abandoned land to grow grain. The grain he grows has high yields and plump kernels, making him "Langzhong's Number One Grain Grower," and he was awarded the honorary title of  "National Major Grain Producer" by the Ministry of Agriculture. He is Yang Yongjie of Zhougongzhai Village, Zaobi Township, Langzhong City. 
　　 
　 Choosing to Stay He Rented 130 mu of Land to Grow Grain 
　　 
As he turned over and dried the golden corn cobs, beads of sweat the size of beans rolled down from his head, yet his heart was filled with sweetness and joy. On August 23, this writer came to Yang Yongjie's home in Zhougongzhai Village, Zaobi Township, Langzhong City, and Yang Yongjie, who was turning over and drying corn in the courtyard, stopped what he was doing. "This year the wind and rain have been favorable, and the grain yield is higher than in previous years. Look, the corn cobs all over the courtyard are enough to keep a person busy, and rice threshing is coming right up. This year's harvest is good!" said the 42-year-old Yang Yongjie as he wiped his sweat and walked toward this writer. 
　　 
In 2004, like all the young people in the village, Yang Yongjie also had a dream of going out to work and earn money. Just as the couple had packed their bags and were about to leave their home, Yang Yongjie looked back at his home with longing. What would happen to the several large cabinets full of grain? Who would plant the crops if all the young people in the village left? Seeing patches of fertile black soil overgrown with weeds because they had been abandoned, Yang Yongjie immediately decided: wouldn't leasing abandoned land and growing grain also be a path to prosperity! 
　　 
So the couple went from door to door to rent land, leasing the weed-covered fields of more than 40 households in the village at a price of 80 yuan per mu, and he eventually rented more than 130 mu of land. It was also in this year that the state successively introduced policy measures such as direct grain subsidies and improved seed subsidies. Without a second thought, Yang Yongjie returned all the direct grain subsidy money to the villagers, then rolled up his sleeves and got busy on his own. The villagers who benefited not only received their share of the direct grain subsidy money but also got rent; without farming, each mu of land could still bring them more than 200 yuan in income. The left-behind elderly smiled so much that their eyes narrowed to slits! 
　　 
Diversified Operation His Family's Annual Income Is Nearly 100,000 
　　 
For more than 4 years, over 1,200 days and nights, Yang Yongjie and his wife worked from sunrise and rested at sunset, sowing sweat into the land and harvesting grain, and the family's circumstances gradually moved toward prosperity. New shoots sprouted on the abandoned land, and the joy of spring blossoms and autumn harvest was written on their brows. As the grain harvest grew, Yang Yongjie also developed livestock farming: more than 20 beef cattle and more than 10 Taihu sows were shut into the pens, and more than 500 chicks chirped around them all day long. The couple became even busier, and the village's idle labor force was put to use. Yang Yongjie paid the villagers 30 yuan in wages every day and also provided meals. This once-quiet Zhougongzhai Village thus became lively. 
　　 
"More pigs, more manure, more grain." Benefiting from this, Yang Yongjie's enthusiasm for farming and breeding ran high. After expanding the scale of grain growing in a "one-stop" way, Yang Yongjie invested funds and bought practical agricultural machinery such as a tillage machine, a harvester, a thresher and a tractor. The modern agricultural road of mechanical plowing and mechanical planting extended beneath his feet. ,  
　　 
Speaking of this year's harvest, Yang Yongjie told this writer that the earthquake disaster had little impact on agricultural production. His whole family harvested more than 30,000 kg of wheat in the small spring season, nearly 20,000 kg of corn and more than 10,000 kg of soybeans, and the family's annual income reached more than 90,000 yuan. Standing in more than 20 mu of rice fields full of rice ears, the rice flowers drifting across the countryside rolled in green waves. Yang Yongjie said: "The rice ears are plump, even better than last year by 10 percent, and the rice output is expected to be more than 10,000 kg." 
　　 
For two consecutive years, Yang Yongjie, a skilled farmer, was awarded the honorary title of "National Major Grain Producer" by the Ministry of Agriculture. On August 8, Yang Yongjie received 5,000 yuan in reward funds from the Langzhong City government. 
　　 
A happy grain grower, Yang Yongjie keeps watch over his home in his native land!