A fur businesswoman who became a "sweet potato king" invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and lost a lot of money.

She used to be a businesswoman in the fur business, but today she is known as the "sweet potato king". Cooperative members from several to more than 2000 households, product sales from the county to the whole country, from a single sweet potato planting to chain deep processing, and now the construction of scenic spots to engage in agricultural tourism-- every step of the growth, Li Zhifan in Dongchengjiao Village, Suyang Township, Yuanshi County has paid hardships unimaginable to outsiders, but no matter what difficulties she encounters, she insists on treating people honestly.

Go home and plant sweet potatoes and lead the villagers to get rich together.

Wearing a pair of glasses, medium height and a capable medium and short haircut, this is the first impression made by 43-year-old Li Zhifan. On the other hand, Li Zhifan's fierce and outspoken character and outspoken expression can quickly shorten the distance between Li Zhifan and others. It was this woman who had no boss and full of affinity that became the director of Minxing Agricultural Professional Cooperative in Yuanshi County.

As early as the late 1980s, Li Zhifan, a fur businessman, became a celebrity in Dongchengjiao Village, and his business was booming. At that time, Li Zhifan, whether it was processing leather or raising Rex rabbits, did business in good faith and planted seeds in her heart. In 2008, with the dream of leading the villagers to become rich together, Li Zhifan, who has become rich in her own family, registered the first farmers' professional cooperative in the village in early 2009. She asked her husband to act as a legal representative and manage the operation of the cooperative. And use their own fur business funds for support. "at first, we had only five members and only more than 80 mu of land, but at that time we found the right position, planted crops for sweet potatoes, and simply formulated a cooperative development plan." Li Zhifan said.

In the spring of the second year after the establishment of the Minxing Agricultural Professional Cooperative in Yuanshi County of Li Zhifan, the sales price of sweet potatoes rose from 60 cents to 2 yuan per jin, and the members planted more sweet potatoes at once. "after the spring of 2010, when people saw that the sales price of sweet potatoes was high, they all swarmed to grow sweet potatoes. I also blamed my inexperience at that time and did not take timely measures to plan the planting volume." Li Zhifan said that in the autumn of 2010, when sweet potatoes were overplanted and the sales price dropped from 2 yuan to 30 cents, the members panicked. Li Zhifan thought that since she was the backbone of the members, she had to grit her teeth and move forward. She actively looks for sales channels to help members contact the storage location of sweet potatoes and the deep processing of sweet potatoes. Even so, more than 200,000 jin of sweet potatoes can not be sold. Looking at the anxious appearance of the members, Li Zhifan decided that he had paid for all the sweet potatoes and must not let the fellow villagers lose money.

Once again, use your own money to compensate for the loss of the members.

After the crisis, Li Zhifan decided to have a sweet potato cellar of his own cooperative. "when our sweet potatoes are unsalable, I look everywhere for storage, not only spending money, but also troublesome. If we have our own sweet potato cellar, we can not only sell sweet potatoes at the wrong time, sell sweet potatoes at a better price, and maximize profits. We can also strive to let more villagers see their advantages and actively join the community." Li Zhifan said.

In this way, Li Zhifan funded himself, transferred 180 mu of land and found someone to build a sweet potato storage cellar. But who would have thought that the sweet potato cellar, which allowed Li Zhifan to invest more than 500,000 yuan, collapsed after more than a year, and more than 700,000 jin of sweet potatoes were buried underground. "it was the eve of the Spring Festival in 2013, and we organized people to repair it until the 28th of the 12th lunar month, but there were still a lot of sweet potatoes buried in the cellar." Li Zhifan felt sick in his heart. "I set up a cooperative just to lead everyone to get rich together, but why is it so bad? does this cooperative have to continue to do so?" After thinking for a long time, Li Zhifan, who never admitted defeat, decided to let the members celebrate the Spring Festival first, and then discuss other things slowly. In this way, Li Zhifan opened his own safe and used the money earned from the fur business to compensate the members for their losses.

However, this incident still hurt her a lot. The stubborn character of not admitting defeat from an early age finally made her make up her mind and resolutely give up her fur business and go all out to run the cooperative.

After firmly believing, Li Zhifan reformulated the development plan of the cooperative. While relying on his own thinking and exploration, he went to agricultural experts to consult and learn. She decided to start by building roads. "our village belongs to a hilly area, and the way up the mountain is extremely difficult. If we want to achieve mechanized farming, it is all a pipe dream." In this way, the vigorous Li Zhifan with a hook machine to repair the road, involving whose land on the other side of the in-depth consultation, according to the other party's opinion to give economic compensation. In her own words, anyway, building the road is to do good for the whole village. She feels open inside and will certainly get the support of the majority of people. After the road was repaired and integrated, Li Zhifan once again transferred four or five thousand mu of land, thus solving the problem of the land.

Over the past seven years since the establishment of the cooperative, Li Zhifan has also summed up an experience, that is, his own strength is limited, and it is necessary to let more educated and courageous young people in the village take the lead. Li Shimin from Dongchengjiao Village is one of them. Li Shimin, 28, joined Li Zhifan's cooperative after returning from the army in 2014. After two years of experience, now he has contracted 30 mu of land for the cooperative and has become an entrepreneur. "I just want these capable young people to grow up rapidly. when they develop and more people get rich, won't we Dongchengjiao Village develop better?" Li Zhifan said.

Nowadays, the big industry of sweet potato is building agricultural tourism.

With honesty, Li Zhifan has been fully recognized by the members. Today, Li Zhifan's cooperative is rated as the "National Hilly Sweet Potato Industry Science and Technology Project Park" by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture. "at present, the cultivation of sweet potato and purple potato in the cooperative has radiated 6 townships and 28 villages, with a total area of more than 60,000 mu, making it the largest purple sweet potato planting base in the north." Li Zhifan said proudly. The new storage cellar built by Li Zhifan's cooperative last year is 5 meters underground, with 20 red brick pits on both sides of the long corridor, enough to store more than 2 million jin of sweet potatoes.

"the cellar is dry and at a constant temperature. Sweet potatoes are stored in the cellar every November and can be stored until May of the following year." Li Zhifan said that coupled with the original million kilograms of sweet potato storage cellar, several modern drying rooms, and two sets of chain drying ovens, they can now develop more than 50 varieties in more than 10 categories, such as purple potato drinks, potato chips, vermicelli, and so on, to realize the development of purple sweet potato flour processing industry. In the future, they will also produce packaged convenience foods, quick-frozen foods and so on.

In order to speed up the industrialization of sweet potato cultivation, with the strong support and help of county supply and marketing cooperatives and farmers' cooperative associations, Li Zhifan also formally signed contracts with Hebei Shouzhong International Trade Co., Ltd., and Taiwan vegetable, Flower and Flower Science and Technology Development Association to jointly develop purple potato deep processing projects. The Minxing Cooperative has also specially cooperated with more than a dozen units, including the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Hebei Agricultural University, to carry out experiments on new sweet potato varieties, disease resistance, drought resistance, continuous cropping resistance and drip irrigation experiments of crops in mountainous areas, and its experience has been demonstrated and popularized throughout the province. In terms of categories alone, there are hundreds of varieties, such as high-yield potatoes with a yield of 6000 jin per mu, purple potatoes with rich nutrients, sweet potatoes suitable for roasting, special potatoes rich in starch, and so on.

At present, Li Zhifan's cooperatives have transferred nearly 10,000 mu of land in Yuan, Zhaoxian and Wuji, as well as in Wei County, Guangzong, Longyao and Nangong in Xingtai City.

While the cooperative is booming, Li Zhifan also decided to build tourism agriculture and set up Qinglongshan Scenic spot, which will open next year. "I want to build here into a vegetable planting area, a forest and fruit picking area, an animal husbandry area, a fishing area in fish ponds and a deep processing industrial park for sweet potatoes, so as to form a sound agricultural tourism." Li Zhifan said that he is a typical mountain man, and his biggest dream is to grow sweet potatoes into a bigger "name" and lead the villagers to become rich together.