The female doctor of agriculture strives for a new world

Duan Ran, a female doctor who is brave in innovation.

Zhonghe Qingya can produce thousands of sprouts.

Those familiar with Duan Ran liked to call her Doctor Duan. Such a title, not only because she really has a doctor's degree, but also because she has made proud innovations in the field of agriculture. Since starting a business in 2012, Duan Ran has only done two things in just three years, one is to set up an agricultural carnival, the other is to produce organic sprouts, but you must not underestimate these two things, because they have subverted the agricultural tradition with a brand-new attitude. With her erudition and broad mind, this female doctor is leading a new revolution in agricultural industry.

Give up the iron rice bowl and start a business alone

He studied landscape planning and design in Huazhong Agricultural University, and studied agricultural economic management major at the same time. After graduation, he directly entered the Ministry of Agriculture and became a national civil servant. Born in 1973, Duan Ran, who grew up in Beijing, is an excellent girl in the eyes of many people around her.

After taking up his post, Duan Ran's work track has changed many times, but he has never left the word "agriculture". After sitting in the position of civil servant for one year, Duan Ran went to China Seed Group, an enterprise affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture, and began to engage in breeding and seed management, and communicated with seed production units all over the world for seven years. Later, she was busy with the listing of Beilin Technology Company for more than a year, responsible for company formation, talent recruitment, building business structure, etc. "If I had been in a civil service position, I would not be so sensitive to the market." Duan Ran said that she was very grateful to the organization for cultivating her. Her experience in the enterprise made her contact more widely and laid a good foundation for her future entrepreneurship.

Although things were going smoothly at work, Duan Ran was not content with the status quo. At the end of 2003, she took a government-funded study abroad and went to the Netherlands to study for a doctorate in agricultural industry and continue her studies. Two years later, after graduating from her doctorate, she found a job in Holland, bought a house and decided to settle here. But in 2006, a new opportunity prompted her to return to the embrace of her motherland. "In 2005, the state carried out land circulation pilot projects in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, so that the land originally scattered in the hands of farmers could be concentrated in the hands of large agricultural households, enterprises and cooperatives, which is a very core element of agricultural industrialization." Duan Ran said that with such policies issued, she felt that she could apply what she had learned. In addition to the invitation of former friends and leaders, she returned to China to enter the Industrial Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and did some things related to the development of agricultural industrialization. On this platform, Duan Ran has a deep understanding of how to declare national key projects and how to transform science and technology into productivity.

Agricultural Carnival became famous in World War I

"I think I'm a lucky man. The first thing I did when I founded the company was the agricultural carnival in Beijing." In 2012, after the World Strawberry Conference ended, Changping District began to develop the post-strawberry economy, but no one can say clearly what the post-strawberry economy is and what to do. At this time, Duan Ran put forward the idea of using the existing venues and facilities to provide a good place for citizens to relax and build a good platform for farmers to increase income, which impressed the competent leaders of Changping District and the city. Duan Ran spent nine months squatting in the strawberry garden in Xingshou Town, Changping District, and wrote the planning scheme of the first Beijing Agricultural Carnival. " 45,000 words of copywriting and 800 pages of PowerPoint. It's a lot of hard work from me and my team members." Recalling the scene at the beginning of his business, Duan Ran is still excited.

In 2013, the first Beijing Agricultural Carnival was unveiled. Projects with creative and scientific content, such as thousands of pumpkins, colorful eggplant, tomato maze and robot strawberry picking, appeared one after another. In just 51 days, more than 1 million tourists were attracted, driving the surrounding strawberry picking gardens to realize sales revenue of nearly 200 million yuan. This carnival activity, which perfectly combined agriculture and entertainment for the first time, completely overturned people's traditional understanding of agriculture. Many people exclaimed that agriculture could be so fun and so tall. Duan Ran became famous in one battle.

Since then, agricultural carnival activities have met with Beijing citizens as scheduled every year and blossomed throughout the country. Wuhan, Hangzhou, Ningxia... On the eve of this year's "National Day", Duan Ran and her team are busy for the opening of the first agricultural carnival in Guiyang. "I'm happy and gratified by the success of the carnival. It allows me to bring out what I've learned over the past 20 years." Although Duan Ran had always felt lucky, this luck and success was earned by her more than 20 years of agricultural experience. This was because people who could achieve Carnival needed comprehensive literacy, not a single specialty. Duan Ran had such foundation and strength.

Although there are more and more participants in carnival activities, no one in the circle will deny Duan Ran's status as the "originator of agricultural carnival". "I often meet people at events who will respectfully shake hands with me and even bow to me." Duan Ran said that the agricultural carnival to her, like a pregnant child, although full of feelings for it, but she does not want to hold this child in her arms all the time, if more people can hug it, like it, this is the most happy and happy for her. For her, how much money and profits she made through the agricultural carnival was not the most important thing. What was important was that the trend she led could be liked and recognized by more and more people.

Innovate sprout production model

In addition to allowing agricultural carnivals to take root across the country, Duan Ran's other innovation is to build the world's largest sprout factory using plant factory methods. Zhonghe Qingya Sprouts Production Co., Ltd., located in Zhaoquanying Town, Shunyi District, is the production base of "Duan Doctor Sprouts." In this factory building with a building area of 14,000 square meters, there are intelligent production equipment invented by Dr. Duan with many national invention patents, which can produce about 100 tons of sprouts every day.

"In people's traditional concept, agriculture is planting a grain of millet in spring and harvesting ten thousand seeds in autumn. Farmers are always facing the loess and facing the sky. I want to change people's inherent concept and produce agricultural products according to industrial standards." The concept of plant factory was not new, but Duan Ran was definitely at the forefront of applying it skillfully to actual production.

From open field cultivation to facility agriculture to factory production, people use advanced technical means to make agricultural production more resilient and controllable to some extent. Duan Ran's sprout plant factory not only makes agricultural production completely controllable, but also more standardized. "We select high-quality seeds, use filtered, purified water, and let them germinate in incubation barrels made from food-grade board." Duan Ran said that in the whole production process, 26 parameters such as light, temperature, humidity and water spraying mode can be standardized control, among which there are 55 kinds of water spraying mode only, truly realizing pollution-free, matrix-free, pesticide-free, all-weather production of green organic sprouts.

"We are a vegetable company, but we have won QS food grade certification, which is the first in the country." Duan Ran's Zhonghe Qingya Sprouts Production Co., Ltd. currently has 100 patents, of which 26 are aimed at sprouts, and there are more than 1000 varieties of sprouts that can be produced. In the eyes of many people, the production of sprouts is the most wasteful of water, but in fact, compared with other agricultural methods, Duan Ran's plant factory is very water-saving. "Our design capacity is 150 tons per day, which is equivalent to the annual vegetable production of 10,000 mu of land. For the same yield, our water consumption is one-fifteenth that of open field cultivation and one-tenth that of facility agriculture." Duan Ran said.