Specialty poultry farming makes Qiandao Lake farmers into leaders in getting rich
In an ecological valley with green mountains and clear waters, have you ever seen a scene of more than ten kinds of specialty poultry, such as Silkie chickens, guinea fowl, turkeys and wild ducks, chasing and playing with one another?
While interviewing in Fengshuling, I heard that there was a bold specialty poultry farming king who set up a natural farm in an ecological valley, attracting many city people to come for sightseeing and leisure and to taste "mountain delicacies and wild flavors" - he is Fang Jianjun, a native of Muhuakeng Village in Fengshuling Town.
On a drizzly, misty rainy day, the reporter came to Fang Jianjun's natural specialty poultry farming base.
Walking into the base, I was captivated by the beautiful scenery here: lush primitive ecological forest, waterfalls, streams, stretches of wild willow trees, a small wooden bridge, a few small houses, occasional wild ducks swimming out of the stream, and groups of Silkie chickens walking out of the shrubbery from time to time. This place is simply a paradise.
Just as everyone was intoxicated by the beautiful scenery, Fang Jianjun walked out of a small house and said with a smile, "Come on, let me show you my specialty poultry chickens."
We learned that Fang Jianjun's natural farm is located below the Tongshan Dam. This year he invested 200,000 yuan to move the farm from the village to this place. There are more than 10,000 chickens of different breeds here, including more than 1,000 guinea fowl and 2,000 Silkie chickens, all raised free-range. These chickens sometimes even stay in the mountain forest for a week before coming back, and there is no need to feed them grain at all. What they eat are leaves, green grass, wild fruits and insects, so the specialty poultry he raises has truly become wild flavor, and the meat is very delicious. It is highly favored by hotels in Hangzhou, Xiaoshan and other places, and phone orders keep coming in an endless stream. I heard that a single guinea fowl brings a profit of 40 yuan.
Fang Jianjun said that his decision to return to his hometown to start an ecological farm came partly from his interest in farming and partly from his belief that ecological farming can both protect the ecological environment and generate economic benefits. For many years, his favorite TV programs have been the getting-rich program on CCTV-7 and the farmers' getting-rich program on Zhejiang TV.
In 2005, Fang Jianjun and his wife gave up the jobs they had held elsewhere for many years and returned to the village to engage in ecological specialty poultry chicken farming. Because they lacked experience and technology in their first attempt at farming, the several hundred local chickens they raised not only failed to make money but also cost them a lot. Unwilling to accept failure, he continued to invest in farming the next year, and this time he succeeded: more than 1,000 local chickens earned him 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. Having tasted success, Fang Jianjun continuously expanded the farming scale, and by 2008 the output value reached more than 100,000. The village's space was no longer enough for him to develop his farming business. In the end, he found this ecological valley below the Tongshan Dam, far from human habitation, to develop his farming career.
People who know Fang Jianjun well all say that he has become obsessed with raising specialty poultry. Sometimes, in order to catch wild pheasants for breeding, he often walks for more than an hour in the mountains to look for them, bringing back some wild pheasants and other poultry for natural breed reproduction. He has the chicken breeds others have, and he also has those others do not. At the same time, he loves to use his brain, is willing to learn, is willing to work hard, and is bold. Once he sets his mind on something, he never turns back and must succeed. Today he has become a specialty poultry farming king accompanied by mountains and waters.
Fang Jianjun told the reporter that at the very beginning, he was single-mindedly focused on farming and thought every day about how to breed more kinds of specialty poultry. Later, after some friends from Hangzhou and other places came to his ecological valley farm, they were all attracted by the natural environment here and were reluctant to leave. So he thought he should give full play to the resource advantages here and open it up into a holy place combining farming with leisure and summer retreat.
As for future development, pointing to the large area of ecological resources before him, Fang Jianjun ambitiously described his grand blueprint. The next step is not only to expand the farming scale here and breed more types of specialty poultry, so that more city people can eat "mountain delicacies and wild flavors" on the premise of not destroying the ecological environment, but also to replant the abandoned mountain land with various fruits, prop up the wild kiwifruit everywhere with trellises to make it convenient for guests to pick, and build some small wooden cabins for guests to rest, so that guests staying here can climb the mountain and pick wild fruits, sit on large rocks and watch the waterfall, or go into the stream and play with the wild ducks...
But as the village committee director, and with his wife also a county people's congress representative, while developing their own careers, they still do not forget the ordinary people in the village. He said that Muhuakeng Village has a population of more than 300 and more than 10,000 mu of mountain forest, and he wants to pass on his farming experience to the villagers and lead everyone to get rich together.