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In 2015, big boy wei wei graduated from the university of guangxi in agricultural resources and environment. At that time, most of the students in the class chose to stay in the city and wish to pass the civil service for an “iron job”. Instead, he went to a professional counterpart farming company to work in agricultural fertilizer after-sale services. As soon as he took up his duties, he was often in the field, almost everywhere in guangxi districts, and met many fruit growers。
Having met with the papaya growers of the golden light farm in monkoshi town, located in the western province of nanning city, huehue realized that papaya cultivation was a lucrative and promising industry. He took a rough account of the price of the fruit papaya at a wholesale price of $1. 4 per kilogram on the market, of 120 papaya trees per acre, of 40 kilograms per tree, and of 4,800 kilograms per acre under good working conditions. With the elimination of labour, fertilizer and other costs, there is a profit of nearly $3,000 per acre. If it were to be expanded to 100 acres, there would be a profit of $2. 3 million a year。
In october of that year, he chose a course of “reverse walking” and returned to gantung in his home village, hinghua village, baekshan town, masan county, with savings of less than $50,000. He invited his classmates, xiao ou and wei, to join together to raise $420,000 in start-up funds, form cooperatives and grow fruit。
The cultivation of fruit trees must first and foremost address the issue of land drift. The old hinhua village of wee wee's has grown corn rice for many years, with many water fields and limited agricultural land being the “baby creeps” of villagers. Following the launch of the land-transfer work, many farmers were not looking forward to the projects. Only well-connected classmates and relatives supported him and transferred scattered land. It was only in january 2016 that wei wei wei and choo learned from the difficult experience of moving 155 acres of natural land from the village of hinghua and kaingan, which began to grow large white-coated papayas。
The cultivation of fruit trees is dependent on technical support. From the very beginning, there have been many difficulties. Beginning in early june 2016, rainfall continued in mashan county, which flows to low-growing areas of 50 acres, creating internal flooding. The rain was too heavy for wei, trying to dig a ditch and drain water, but it did nothing, and many fruit trees were damaged. The rain disaster of that year resulted in a reduction in the production of woodmelon in hainan and guangdong at a market price of $2. 6 per kilogram, which is twice as high as in previous years. When the papaya matured in the autumn of that year, the papayas in the vere orchard sold a cumulative 135,000 kilograms. Despite the modest gains, wei wei felt that the benefits of shifting land and planting fruit trees were far more than could be imagined and that it was worth continuing to practice deep cultivation。
Wee chee told the chinese youth newspaper, chinese online journalist, that at the start of the orchard planting, many farmers had no knowledge of fruit papaya cultivation techniques or market practices and were still watching the land. To that end, he travelled daily in orchards, hand-in-hand, and led farmers with practical action。
On 8 november 2016, with limited revenue, wei chee established a professional cooperative to grow mashan county ma shan field, with a growing team of six trusting farmers. Following the careful management of all members, during march and may of the following year, the orchards entered a productive period, and the papaya marketed the cities of beijing, shanghai, chengdu and chongqing, with a return of $470,000, with prior investments in cooperatives gradually returning。
Wei yongshaw from haut-gandam village is a member of the cooperative, who has been joining the cooperative to experiment with the planting of an acre of melon, with a net profit of over 6,000 in the first year. Having tasted the sweets, he also planned to rent dozens of more acres of land to be used as a giant papaya industry. The poor families of upper ganton, rae-hyan, also join the cooperative in wei wei, which works in orchards and picks, earns over 10,000 workers a year and is able to escape poverty。
Looking back at the experience of entrepreneurship for more than three years, wei xie told the chinese youth newspaper, chinese online journalist, that thanks to his knowledge of agricultural resources and work experience in agricultural enterprises at the university level, ordinary farmers tend to focus only on production, but he focuses more on the quality of papayas. He invested more than $100,000 in the purchase of drip irrigation facilities for employees to try to plant water fertilizers in an integrated manner. At first, the villagers called it a “lost family”. From june to mid-july 2016, mashan county experienced high temperatures and drought for over 40 consecutive days. It is these drip irrigation facilities that guarantee the irrigation of orchards。
Although orchard management is on track, the road to entrepreneurship is still very difficult. He stated that in recent years the state had introduced a number of compensatory policies to support university students returning home to start their own businesses, but it was still difficult to declare micro-enterprises like their own. “the filing requires a formal financial audit, but i am still in the start-up stage of starting up a business, unable to hire professional accountants, basic expenses such as rents for cooperatives, wood fertilizer inputs and labour, and difficulties in obtaining formal invoices and financial statements as required by the policy, often not being able to apply for approved awards.”。
Moreover, over the past two years, it has become apparent that the pressure on the agricultural utility industry in small counties has been felt. The local electricity industry started late and logistics costs were much higher than in the surrounding areas. For an eight-pound fruit, the logistics cost in mashan county is 7. 5, while the relatively mature counties such as yan county and tanyang are only 3. 5. “a piece of woodmelon in eight pounds in other counties can be sold up to $19. 5, but in mashan county, if it is sold at the same price, it will be less profitable than logistics, packaging fees.”
At the beginning of 2017, the mayor of the town of baekshan in masan county, wu su zhong, visited the orchard in wei-yee, where he recognized wei-wei's return to entrepreneurship and hoped to use wei-wei's cooperatives as a platform to involve more local farmers in cooperatives and to develop industrial wealth. Subsequently, in july 2017, the government of mashan county consolidated financial resources under the “tracking bridge” of wu suzhong, helping wei repair a gravel road that runs through the papaya planting base, and in 2018 helped build a well by the orchard. We are grateful to say, “this support of the government, like a drop in the snow, has helped me overcome two major difficulties and has given me confidence to stay the course.”
In 2018, fruit papayas were grown in two orchards of the vere cooperative, amounting to 220 acres, which, if properly managed, are expected to produce around 300,000 kilograms of papaya in 2019. Just after the spring festival, he began to try to plant fruits such as lemons and balms in orchards and enrich the variety of orchards。
Compared to many of the students in the office, wei wei's involvement in agricultural start-up has a long, uncontrollable and dirty cycle. Sometimes his family complains that he “is better off doing a steady job”. However, as the orchard was slowly becoming more powerful and had led many villagers to grow out of poverty, he felt that he had chosen the right direction. “now that we have chosen this path, we continue with our firm confidence.” he said with optimism。
