Farmers in Bozhou are associated with medicinal materials to grow "real gold and silver" on thousands of mu of land.

In the newly-built professional market of traditional Chinese medicine in Bozhou City, there is an advertisement saying, "some people are daydreaming, some people earn so much that they can't move." The so-called "earning too much to move" here refers to those businessmen or farmers engaged in the business of traditional Chinese medicine in Bozhou. During this visit to Bozhou, the reporter found such a farmer, Wang Minxing, who has made a living by growing medicine for generations. Since 2009, he has planted more than 1400 mu of medicinal materials and hired 400 to 500 pharmaceutical farmers to specialize in growing medicines for him. Later, in the form of agricultural cooperatives, more than 200 members of pharmaceutical farmers were recruited to purchase their medicinal materials, with a gross profit of NT $3 to NT $4 million a year. This is just a microcosm of "earning too much to move" among many medicine farmers in Bozhou.

Be familiar with herbal medicine from generation to generation

Interviewer: when did you start growing medicine? Wang Minxing: for as long as I can remember, my family has been growing medicine. Our family is from Shijiuli Town, Bozhou. My father, grandfather and master are all kind of medicine. Exactly when it began, at least after Hua Tuo (period of the three Kingdoms). Our farmers in Shijiuli Town have a tradition of growing medicine, just like other farmers in the village, which has been used for generations to make a living.

Interviewer: what kind of medicine do you usually plant?

Wang Minxing: there are probably dozens of them, mainly Atractylodes macrocephala, Radix Paeoniae Alba, Boju, Anemarrhena anemarrhena and Tiannanxing. I used to work alone. If I planted a little on my own land, my income would be OK. In 2008, when the land was turned around in the village, I contracted more than 1000 mu of land and began to plant on a large scale.

Contract 1470 mu of land to grow medicine

Reporter: in 2008, it seemed that the whole medicine market was not in the doldrums.

Wang Minxing: that's right. At that time, many Chinese medicine dealers who contracted for the cultivation of Chinese herbal medicines lost money, and there were probably millions more.

Interviewer: how much did you lose then?

Wang Minxing: I'm fine, because I'm familiar with this market and know how to grow, how to process, how to sell, and I don't lose too much. At that time, the land contract was only 600 yuan per mu, and the cost of planting medicinal materials was relatively low. But from 2009 to 2010, the whole medicine market rebounded and the price of medicine rose sharply, but not a little bit. When he was about to do a big job, the farmers who contracted the land quit.

Interviewer: why?

Wang Minxing: they feel that the medicinal materials have gone up, and the leased prices of the fields have become cheaper and uneconomical, so they have to go back to the fields that were originally contracted out and grow their own medicinal materials.

Interviewer: then you have no land to grow medicinal materials.

Wang Minxing: yes, the signed contract has gone back on its promise. They are all villagers in the countryside, so where are they going to reason? Later, there was nothing I could do. A relative set up a medicine factory and asked me to work together. I re-contracted 1470 mu of land in Shibali Town next door and began to grow medicinal materials.

Experts are invited to teach four times a year.

Reporter: how many drug farmers do you need to help grow the 1470 mu of land you contracted?

Wang Minxing: there are only three fixed managers, but when planting and collecting medicine, you have to hire more than 500 drug farmers to help.

Reporter: I heard that you set up another medicine cooperative later?

Wang Minxing: under the leadership of the government, I have set up another medicine cooperative named after myself, which now has 208 pharmaceutical farmers' members. I buy the medicinal herbs they grow every year at a price higher than the market price.

Reporter: are these member medicine farmers also professional herbal growers in Shijiuli town?

Wang Minxing: basically, there are also some from other towns. Every year, I also pay out of my own pocket to the 208 members of the cooperative and more than 500 helping pharmaceutical farmers to gather together and ask experts to teach them some knowledge about scientific cultivation. Expert lectures are fixed, four times a year. I teach sometimes myself, and I talk to them when I look at my spare time.

The epitome of "earning too much to walk"

Reporter: with such a large planting area and so many drug farmers' members, can you be regarded as a big drug farmer in Bozhou?

Wang Minxing: (laughs) I shouldn't be the biggest. There are bigger ones. There are still 12 cooperatives for growing medicinal materials like me in Bozhou. I'm kind of at the top of the list.

Reporter: how much was the profit in that year?

Wang Minxing: hundreds of thousands. If the gross profit is taken into account, it is about three or four million.