Stories of Prosperity through Metallurgy: Part 10 of the Series on College Students Starting Businesses in Rural Areas
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The Determined \"Glasses-Wearing Farmer\" Wu Yiming My name is Wu Yiming; I graduated from the Department of Plant Protection at Southwest Agricultural University in 2001, and I am currently the general manager of Zimaosi Sanyi Agriculture Co., Ltd. in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province. In 2001, like many other seniors about to graduate, I submitted hundreds of resumes, only to receive no response at all ； So I rushed to join the competition for postgraduate admissions, only to fail by 0.5 points in English and be excluded from the list of successful candidates. I had no choice but to return to my hometown and try my luck there.
I was extremely depressed during that time; to escape from those feelings, I would often go alone to Zimaotai Mountain behind the village, sit on a rock there, and look into the distance, seeing the paddy fields that were familiar to me from my childhood now abandoned. This sight suddenly gave me an idea: since I study agriculture, wouldn’t it be a viable option to lease this land and start my own business? When I got home and shared my thoughts, I was immediately met with strong opposition from my family. Driven by a spirit of not giving up, I resolved to become a \"college student farmer\". At that time, with the efforts of my family, a government agency in the city decided to take me on, but I declined their kind offer, as I had already made up my mind.
At the beginning of 2002, after extensive market research and analysis, I decided to start my business by growing pollution-free vegetables. When I first started my business, I had only a few thousand yuan borrowed from my mother, plus a personal credit loan of 30,000 yuan that the manager at the rural credit cooperative granted to me on an exceptional basis. Building greenhouses, buying seeds, raising seedlings, preparing the land, purchasing fish fry… As I strive for my dreams, it seems I have endless energy. Just then, fate once again played a trick on us young entrepreneurs. A sudden storm blew down the greenhouse completely, turning the vegetable garden into a sea of water. Tens of thousands of yuan in investment was wasted in an instant. Our venture in producing pollution-free vegetables has encountered setbacks.
One day, while selling vegetables, I noticed that the free-range chickens at the stall next to me were selling very fast and at a good price. The idea of raising free-range chickens came to mind again. I first bought a book on chicken-raising techniques to gain some additional professional knowledge. Buy another 50 chicks to try free-range raising in the mountains. Although the number of animals raised is small, no care is taken slack in terms of management. When the chickens are ready for market, everyone rushes to buy them to taste. 46 chickens were sold out in less than a day and a half. We became excited all at once: 100, 200... 1000, 2000. The scale of breeding increased gradually, and the techniques for raising free-range chickens also became more sophisticated.
We made some money raising free-range chickens, and we want to expand our operations. After a year, a positive cycle of “livestock and poultry – biogas – fruit orchards” was established. In 2004, our company was the first to register a free-range chicken brand – Hongxia Poultry. The company has promoted the breeding of free-range chickens by local farmers, enabling the production of over 50,000 chickens per year. Looking back on my entrepreneurial journey over the past five years, what I want to say most is that the rural areas and agriculture represent vast opportunities for us college students to start businesses. Although the path of entrepreneurship is not always smooth, hard work will always yield rewards. As long as we persevere, our youthful dreams will bloom beautifully in the fertile soil of the construction of a new socialist countryside!