Yang Bo, the sheep-raising champion from Guanbao Village, Zhangqiang Town, Kangping County, Liaoning
Yang Bo, born on April 22, 1950, responded to the call in 1968 and was sent to Guanbao Village, Zhangqiang Town, Kangping County, where he spent 6 springs and autumns with the poor and lower-middle peasants who re-educated him. In 1974 he returned to Shenyang, in 1982 he was admitted to the Economic Management major of the Party School of the CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee, and he graduated in 1986. In 1999, inspired by the Party's policies, he and several friends jointly contracted a stretch of wasteland in Guanbao Village, Zhangqiang Town, and returned to his second hometown to start a second venture.
The six years of rural life, and the farmers' diligence and plain character, deeply influenced him and constantly spurred him on to build the base well and make the farmers prosperous, so as to repay their deep affection. After nearly two years of arduous effort, he founded Baokang Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., and on a stretch of ruins built 4000 sq m of sheep sheds, with 2000 crossbred foundation ewes currently kept for breeding and 30 purebred Charolais rams. Since the base was built, the company's total investment in fixed assets has reached 2.6 million yuan. It now has 1 animal husbandry engineer, 2 veterinarians and 2 technicians, and its technical strength keeps growing. Baokang Company has become a leading enterprise that drives thousands of households to make a "sheep" fortune.
Not forgetting his fellow villagers after getting rich was Yang Bo's original intention in founding the company. While he was developing vigorously on his own and economic returns kept rising, the wave of rural industrial restructuring arrived. To help farmers in the surrounding areas shake off poverty and become prosperous, Baokang Company implemented the "company + farmers" development model. Its features are, first, that raising sheep gives high economic returns: farmers make full use of idle warehouses, courtyards and corn stalks, and each ewe raised brings an annual income of 400 yuan. Second, the company offers farmers truly preferential terms: free breeding, free technical consultation, and buyback of lambs above market price. In the course of development, Yang Bo went deep among the farmers, publicized the approach in many ways, and taught the techniques for getting rich by raising sheep, and achieved obvious results. Here, the "company + farmers" model has already taken shape. More than 200 households raise more than 30 sheep each on average. Some sheep-raising households earn more than 10,000 yuan each in specialized income. At present, in Zhangqiang Town and even in Kangping, a wave of enthusiasm for raising sheep and making a "sheep" fortune has been stirred up.
Looking to the future, Yang Bo plans to breed newer meat-type sheep varieties, carry out large-scale improvement of local foundation ewes, and strive to build the company into an enterprise integrating scientific research, breeding, raising, slaughtering and processing in one chain, so as to make a positive contribution to promoting Kangping's economic development.