In the past, big pig farmers fell in love with the "sweet cause"

Walking into the gate of Yongxing Family Farm Base in Xinmin Village, Fengqiao Town, farmer Yang Yongxing is packing newly picked melons. "muskmelons with our 'Yongxing Farm' logo are definitely sold in Jiaxing fruit market. The sweetness of 12 degrees is the best in melons." Speaking of his own products, Yang Yongxing revealed a little pride in his tone.

With the last batch of melons shipped out of the farm this year, Yang Yongxing calculated the harvest in the first half of the year. "when I first went on the market in April, my melons sold for more than 10 yuan a catty, but now the price is a little lower, but an income of 13,000 to 4,000 yuan per mu is not a problem."

Three years ago, Yang Yongxing was somewhat hesitant when he was facing a change of industry. Time goes back to 2013, when Yang Yongxing was still a major pig farmer in the village, with a pig house of more than 1000 square meters, with an annual output of more than 3000 pigs. However, the breeding characteristics of "scattered, small, many, dense" quickly made the villagers feel the "injury" of the environment. Yang Yongxing remembers clearly, "Pan Jiabang on his doorstep stinks in summer, and the sick and dead pigs in retail families will secretly throw them into the river."... " Therefore, the reduction and improvement of pig quantity and quality and the protection of ecological environment have been placed in an important position.

"dismantling is necessary, but after raising pigs for more than a decade, what can people in their late fifties do after dismantling them?" Learning about Yang Yongxing's doubts, cadres at the district, town, and village levels came to his door one after another, not only introducing him to the preferential policies of changing jobs, but also really finding new ways and partners for him to start a business.

"the roots of farmers are still in the fields, and the large-scale cultivation of fine melons and fruits is indeed quite promising." With plans for the future, Yang Yongxing became the first batch of farmers in the village to demolish illegal pig houses in the second half of 2013. After that, with the assistance of district, town, and village cadres, he successfully transferred 60 mu of land in the village and registered and established Yongxing Family Farm in Fengqiao Town, Nanhu District, Jiaxing City, ready to play a big role in Xintiandi.

However, the ideal is very "plump", while the reality is very "bony". Yang Yongxing, who is a layman in melon and fruit cultivation, soon encountered a bottleneck in his development. Lack of funds and lack of technology have become two major "obstacles" in the process of expanding his planting scale. Fortunately, the local government's policy of changing production and supporting him brought a "timely rain" to his farmland. In 2014, Yang Yongxing invested more than 900,000 yuan to build a steel pipe greenhouse and received a subsidy of more than 200,000 yuan. The town also made matchmaking for him, bringing in Dong Dahong, a planting expert in Jiashan, to buy shares in order to give advice for planting high-quality products.

Yang Yongxing ushered in a bumper harvest in the first year after the conversion, and the melons and fruits harvested that year brought Yang Yongxing more than 1 million yuan in sales revenue. "I don't think we can get back the capital in less than a year, and we can still have a surplus of more than 200,000 yuan." Gratifying results, let Yang Yongxing once again strengthen the determination of high-quality melons and fruits.

In the past two years, Yang Yongxing once again transferred 20 mu of land in the village, expanding the scale of the farm to 80 mu, and built a total of 70 facilities sheds. On the basis of melon planting, he also explored the planting skills of other melons, such as cantaloupe. "after harvesting melons in June, we began to cultivate cantaloupes in July, and we can get another 5000 yuan per mu." Yang Yongxing expressed his heart to the reporter while calculating his earnings in the second half of the year. "in fact, as long as our income is not reduced and the surrounding environment is better, we are certainly the happiest. Now there are fish swimming in Panjiabang, and the air is much cleaner than it was three years ago."

According to the relevant person in charge of Fengqiao Town, there are many typical examples of changing production and employment like Yang Yongxing in Fengqiao Town, and the success of their "second entrepreneurship" has also set an example and strengthened confidence for farmers to change production and increase income. At present, more than 50 family farms have been registered in the town.