Pea Queen Zhang Tao leads the villagers to become rich

The picture shows pea expert and Zhang Tao (middle) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences guiding in the field.

Zhang Tao is the president of Beijing Rongtao Pea production and Marketing Cooperative. Since 1997, Zhang Tao has run a pea business in Pinggu on the outskirts of Beijing. With her "integrity" quality and persistent spirit, she has led the villagers to become rich together, and she has also become a "pea queen".

Get rich together

Share high quality peas with villagers

In 2000, because of the shortage of peas, Zhang Tao contracted 80 mu of land and went to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to buy new varieties and invited experts to guide him to grow peas. The yield per mu reached 300 kg that year, more than double the yield of pea per mu in Pinggu, and reached 350 kg in the second year.

Subsequently, Zhang Tao registered and set up his own company to develop pea growers in the surrounding villages. She promised: the company is responsible for providing seed and finished product recycling, and hiring expert technical support. "as long as you plant it in the way I say, you can have the money, and if you lose it, it's mine!" In the first year of the experiment, peas with a yield of more than 300 kilograms per mu were planted. At the end of the year, one kilogram of beans earned 92 cents! The villagers thought they would be satisfied with the return of 20 cents per kilogram, but Zhang Tao himself only left 20 cents, and the rest was returned to the villagers.

Engage in research and development

Whole pea food is popular.

In 2008, Zhang Tao registered and established a professional cooperative for pea production and marketing in Rongtao. The cooperative grows like a snowball, but the profits of production, processing and sales are taken up by other enterprises. Zhang Tao is ready to carry out deep processing of peas. Members trust Zhang Tao and raise 6.5 million yuan without interest to support her to expand the plant and introduce equipment. In 2010, a 1100 square meter production workshop that passed the food production safety certification was completed.

In the first year, the members picked up the medicine according to the prescription, ground the peas into powder, then processed them into small foods and sold them on the market. They use high-quality peas without even adding additives, and the cost is higher than other people's ex-factory prices, and they lost a lot of money in the first year. Zhang Tao didn't touch the egg against the stone. She thought that bean powder could be adulterated, peas could not be adulterated, and that she had the advantage of peas, which others could not match. The next year they began to produce whole peas snack food.

The pea variety cultivated by Zhang Tao has a relatively thick skin, which is not easy to peel after deep frying, and the snacks produced are good in taste, uniform in size and fresh in taste. Knowledgeable merchants tear open the small packaging and take a fancy to it, which is very popular after it is put on the market.

Zhang Tao is not only honest, but also pragmatic and studious. The new variety of peas she cultivated and used is upright, does not need to put up shelves, and saves labor when harvesting. At present, her cooperative has developed into 527 social members, 4000 growers, a planting base of 150000 mu, annual sales of peas exceeding 8000 tons and an annual output value of 65 million yuan. The member rebate increased from tens of thousands of yuan at the beginning to 7 million yuan in 2014. Since the establishment of the cooperative, more than 20 million yuan have been paid out in dividends and rebates, and more farmers have embarked on the road of prosperity by planting peas.