Self-employed Sang Hongshun abandons his old trade to blaze a new trail to prosperity

    Before 2004, Sang Hongshun was a self-employed worker in the 145th Regiment, having worked as a carpenter for more than 20 years and owning a small-scale woodworking workshop. His carpentry skills were superb, his service attitude good, and his reputation high, making him somewhat well known locally. Sang Hongshun's life was therefore quite comfortable, and he had also built up a certain amount of savings. But he was not satisfied; he always wanted to accomplish something big.     

    To this end, Sang Hongshun made a decision that surprised and puzzled quite a few people - abandoning business for farming.    

    He had his reasons for making such a decision. In 2003, a friend told him that more than 400 mu of grassland at the Ninth Company of the 144th Regiment had not been contracted by anyone. Upon learning this, old Sang personally came to the Ninth Company for an on-site inspection and soon signed a contract. Since many people in the 145th Regiment had made their fortunes through self-run economy, while the breeding industry accounted for only a small proportion of the regiment's industrial structure, the prospects for developing lean-meat pig farming were bound to be good. Having made up his mind, Sang Hongshun sold the woodworking workshop he had painstakingly run for more than 20 years, built pig pens beside the grassland of the Ninth Company of the 144th Regiment, and bought back 20 sows for breeding.      
      
    Although he knew nothing about pig farming, where there is no technique one can learn and sum up experience while raising pigs. In order to raise the pigs well, Sang Hongshun started everything from zero. While raising them, he sought advice from technicians, and at the same time bought a large number of books on pig farming from bookstores and studied them diligently. Every time after reading and studying or consulting technicians, old Sang wrote down his insights in a notebook - such as how to prevent and treat diseases, which pigs should be given which medicine, how to sterilize and detoxify, and what formulas to use - he recorded them all clearly. Relying on his own hardworking hands and indomitable spirit of study, Sang Hongshun overcame one difficulty after another. He managed the pigs by category according to different periods: sows required a dry and clean environment, so he and his wife cleaned the pig pens once a day; large and medium pigs were relatively extensive to raise, so he raised the fencing higher; piglets needed special care, so he built the piglet pens on an upper level... Hard work pays off. After more than 5 years of effort, Sang Hongshun went from a layman to an expert, mastering a complete set of lean-meat pig breeding techniques.     

    Thanks to his adequate technical and management standards, his pig farm developed rapidly. At present, the pig pen area has grown to 3000 sq m, with more than 140 sows, producing about 1500 pigs for market each year, forming a breeding farm integrating sows, large, medium and small pigs, and making him a major breeding household in the 144th Regiment. Good efficiency brought him substantial returns, and he continued to invest these earnings back into the pig farm, constantly expanding his breeding business.