"New Farmer" Wu Di: children in the city turn to modern "cool agriculture"

These days, strawberries in the greenhouse are growing vigorously in Shizhangzhuang Village, Jiangzuo Town, Luoyang City, Henan Province. In another month, strawberries will be on the market.

In 2009, Wu Di and Zhang Yang, who ended the life of "Beijing drifters", returned to their hometown to establish the "Le Huo Nature Park". They use agricultural Internet of things technology to grow fruits, manage 500 mu of orchards, and market products through the Internet, with a turnover of nearly 10 million yuan this year. At present, they are trying to turn this ordinary farm into a "rural mass creation space", driving the surrounding villagers to play modern "cool agriculture".

From a "hothead" who did not understand technology and lacked funds six years ago, to today's "leading goose" among young entrepreneurs in local rural areas, Wu Di admitted that behind their success on the way to starting a business, it is inseparable from the local regiment organization, which serves youth entrepreneurship as a "big backer".

At the beginning of starting a business, "two years of digging holes to bury watermelons"

Born in 1986, Wu Di is the only child in the family. He grew up in Luoyang and attended university in Beijing.

Wu Di said that during his sophomore year, he came up with the idea of starting a business. However, due to the lack of good opportunities, he failed to find a good entrepreneurial project until he graduated from college in 2009. After being a "Beijing drifters" for several months, Wu Di decided to go back to Luoyang to look for opportunities.

Once when he was going home, Wu Di passed the enterprise training center in front of his home and learned that the Luoyang Municipal Party Committee of the regiment was going to organize entrepreneurial training there, so he signed up. The 3-day training was not long, but the case of entrepreneurial success and the encouragement of his mentor made him rekindle his entrepreneurial dream.

"when the watermelons were ripe that year, I heard a friend say that watermelons in a place in Mengjin County in Luoyang were particularly sweet, 10 yuan per jin. If they were not booked in advance, they could only be bought with approval from the village director." This lit up Wu Di's eyes, and he decided to "do a big job."

Wu Di found Zhang Yang, an old classmate who is also "Beijing drifters", and the two hit it off. When choosing the site, they took a fancy to a farm that used to grow traditional Chinese medicine in Yichuan County, Luoyang City, where there is not only a greenhouse, but also a pig farm nearby, where there is no shortage of fertilizer.

In 2010, despite the opposition of their families, two big boys came to Jiangzuo Town, Yichuan County with the 100000 yuan they had saved and rented five greenhouses. At the beginning of their business, because they did not know the planting technology and business management, they ate and lived in the park every day and worked in the shed with the hired farmers.

Although they "stared" in the garden every day, when the watermelons matured in May of that year, seeing that other people's watermelons were on the market, their melons were still raw. Finally, due to technical problems, all the raw watermelons in the five greenhouses were secretly dug and buried.

"it is normal to fail in the first attempt. It's just a technical problem. I've learned the technology and start from scratch. " Wu Di said that the two men found Sun Xiaofeng, a well-known local agronomist, as the technical director of the farm, borrowed money everywhere to raise 800000 yuan, and contracted all 40 sheds in the garden to grow watermelons.

Due to the failure of the first year, the local villagers no longer trust them and are unable to recruit workers when they need workers to work. In the predicament, Wu Di once again thought of asking the regiment organization for help, and with the help of the local Youth League Committee, the watermelon was planted smoothly.

In May 2011, watermelons in 40 greenhouses had a bumper harvest. But the watermelons in 40 greenhouses are planted and ripe together, and all of them will be sold within a week, which worries the two people to death.

Send out a single page, find someone to taste it, and give it away for free. although they have made a lot of efforts, they can only watch the pieces of watermelons rot in the field. Some of those who have not been dealt with have no choice but to dig a hole and bury it at night.

"I dug two holes in two years and buried myself." Wu Di said that after their failure the next year, they had a big fight.

Regroup to build "intelligent agriculture"

"if we break up, we each have debts of hundreds of thousands of yuan, and it takes us 20 years to pay off our debts by working alone. While others start from scratch, we start with negative numbers." Wu Di found Zhang Yang to talk to him and advised him to "gamble again."

In 2012, they opened the planting interval, and as soon as the watermelons were planted, they began to look for customers, and the customers who were given away for free the following year also became "repeat customers". This year, high-quality watermelons in 40 greenhouses sold nearly 2 million yuan, and they successfully fought a "turnaround."

Watermelons were planted in the first half of the year, and then the greenhouse will be idle. What should we do? Wu Di decided to try out fine Japanese strawberries. This time, before the strawberries were ripe, he marketed them in advance, using Weibo, which is popular with young people.

In early 2013, he signed more than 800 orders through Weibo alone, raking in more than 40, 000 yuan. "at this time, I felt that I was no longer a farmer, but an e-commerce business." Wu Di said that later, he also opened an online fruit store on Taobao.

When strawberries were harvested and watermelons were planted, many local people went to the park to pick, and sales soared.

"nowadays, when people choose food, the most important thing is green and health. If we make a brand of fruit, we will not worry about the market. " Wu Di said that in 2013, he expanded the area of the park to 500 mu, introduced yellow pears from South Korea and soft-seed pomegranates from Tunisia, established a "Lehuo Natural Park chain Farm" and organically combined online sales with offline experience.

The idea is creative, but the capital is still short. Through the efforts of the Luoyang Municipal CPC Committee, the Henan Provincial CPC Committee won an interest-free loan of 2.3 million yuan for Wu Di, and Luoyang Development and Reform Commission, Agricultural Machinery Bureau and other departments also provided financial support or subsidies. Since then, Wu Di's farm has been on the fast track of development.

Wu Di, who studied computer science, is well aware of the importance of Internet of things technology in agricultural standardized cultivation. In the past two years, they have invested more than 2 million yuan to build the "Smart Agriculture 4.0" system.

According to Wu Di, the greenhouse is all automatic operation. Two instruments in the nursery are used to detect air humidity, soil temperature and humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and plant metabolic capacity. Data in the greenhouse are collected every 10 seconds and uploaded to the server for backstage data analysis.

Today, Wu Di can control the whole farm from a mobile phone.

Drive the villagers to play "cool agriculture"

Along the way, Wu Di knows very well that only by sharing entrepreneurial achievements and opportunities with more people can his entrepreneurial road go further.

"when we first arrived, the villagers treated us as outsiders." Later, Wu Di subcontracted the greenhouse to local farmers for management. if he did a good job, he could contract more and take more money.

"in the past, I would only take care of the children at home and play mahjong in my spare time." Li Taoxia, a villager, is the director of the logistics department in the park. "now, with salary plus dividends, I can earn 60,000 to 70,000 yuan a year, and I can also take care of my family. The most important thing is to work for myself."

In order to improve the standardized planting technology and reduce the planting difficulty, Lehuo Natural Park uses the "Intelligent Agriculture 4.0" system to carry out production management and data analysis through Internet technology, and uses Internet of things technology for production supervision and data collection. it ensures the standardized operation flow in the process of agricultural production, reduces the technical difficulty of production operation, and truly enables farmers to produce high-quality fruits and vegetables with "zero technology".

"our management team is only responsible for hatching, slowly taking shape, gradually pulling it out, and then supporting the next farm." According to Wu Di, "Le Huo Nature Park" has initialled an agreement with six local farms and reached a preliminary cooperation intention to provide it with technical training and services next year.

With the help of the activity of "e-commerce training in rural areas" of the Luoyang Municipal Party Committee, "Lehuo Natural Park" has set up a rural e-commerce training course to help more farmers understand the Internet and provide a broad development space for many left-behind women and young people returning home.

In August this year, the Luoyang Municipal Party Committee established a "rural mass creation space" relying on the "Lehuo Natural Park", making ordinary farmers become managers and technicians, and eventually become farmers and develop into "new farmers."