The story of a 29-year-old rural boy from Sichuan starting aquaculture business

A 29-year-old rural boy from Sichuan started aquaculture business, and his output value this year has reached 1 million yuan. Let me share with you the story of starting a business at the age of 29. I hope you like it! Welcome to read!

Partnership business: from engineering student to aquaculture expert

Li Kaijiang, 29 years old this year, is from Neijiang, Sichuan He is a native of Wayao Village, Purun Town, Longchang County. In the past, he often helped his family with farm work during winter and summer vacations, and he has a certain understanding of farming. After passing the college entrance examination, he entered the metallurgical major of Panzhihua University and became an engineering student. While in school, Li Kaijiang worked part-time and ran cram schools during the winter and summer vacations, earning a lot of living expenses. "It's almost ten to twenty thousand yuan in two months. Starting a business has always been my dream."

One day in the summer of 2012, when Li Kaijiang was talking to his childhood friend Lu Fujian, they both had entrepreneurial ideas. When Lu Fujian mentioned that he was developing special aquaculture in Gaoshan Village and invited Li Kaijiang to partner, Li Kaijiang readily agreed.

"I would like to, but my parents don't understand. They feel that I finally got into college and left the countryside, but I have to go back to the countryside. Moreover, aquaculture requires a lot of investment and high risks." But after working with Lu Fujian and others, After contacting his partners many times and understanding the situation on the spot, Li Kaijiang was very optimistic about the agricultural market and persuaded his parents to borrow tens of thousands of yuan. Together with his own savings, he finally invested more than 100,000 yuan in shares, and the partnership established Xinsheng in Purun Town. The loach breeding base conducts artificial breeding to cultivate loach fry, white mullet fry, etc.

Dreams are beautiful, but reality is cruel. With an engineering background, he didn't understand aquaculture at all, and aquaculture is very professional, so he had to learn it from scratch.

In 2014, when changing the water for white mullet fry, Li Kaijiang calculated the water volume too high, causing more than 40,000 white mullet fry to run out and enter the breeding fish pond, resulting in a loss of nearly 40,000 yuan. "Because white mullet can kill each other, once they enter the breeding fish pond, there won't be much left."

What to do if you don't have skills? Then learn!

" There are many large aquaculture farmers around Purun, and I go to see and learn from them when I have nothing to do." Li Kaijiang said that as a "rural boy", he is familiar with everything in the countryside. The large farmers in the surrounding areas have all been known to him since he was a child. I have seen it, and if I "shamelessly" study, no one will say anything.

Not only did he learn from “soil experts”, Li Kaijiang also used his free time to learn various theoretical knowledge through the Internet, books and other channels, and then combined with the actual situation of the breeding base, repeatedly observed the practice, summarized and extracted experience, Coupled with the guidance of relevant experts from the Longchang Fisheries and Fisheries Bureau, Li Kaijiang gradually mastered many techniques for loach induction, hatching and standard seedling cultivation.

Suffered a heavy blow: the partners were separated and only themselves were left

"When we first started, our monthly salary was only a few hundred yuan." Li Kaijiang said that when the breeding base first started to develop, In the past two years, we have seen a lot of investment, but little benefit. The expenses far exceed the income. Several partners can only get one month's salary of others in a year.

Gradually, some partners could no longer hold on, some began to leave, and others joined one after another. People came and went, but only Li Kaijiang and Lu Fujian persisted.

In difficult times, departments at all levels in Longchang City extended a helping hand, including entrepreneurial subsidies, interest-free loans, technical guidance, entrepreneurial support project funds, and office renovations? With the help of government departments, Li Kaijiang’s team began Try to integrate town and village resources, further expand the scale of breeding, and become an aquaculture alliance integrating production, sales, and management. It not only develops itself, but also drives the surrounding farmers to develop together, providing farmers with better Technology, smoother sales channels, and better management have led more farmers to embark on the road to wealth.

After more than four years of development, the aquaculture base of Li Kaijiang’s team has prospered. The breeding area has expanded from more than 10 acres to more than 60 acres, and the annual output value has also increased from more than 100,000 yuan to more than 800,000 yuan. It has been recognized as a provincial college student entrepreneurship technology incubation base, Sichuan College Graduate Entrepreneurship Park (incubation base), and Longchang Youth Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base.

Everything seemed to be developing in a good direction, but how could Li Kaijiang know that a bigger Waterloo was quietly approaching.

Since 2016, the market price of loach seedlings has dropped sharply, from 5 cents per piece to 4 cents per piece. Li Kaijiang’s aquaculture base has suffered a heavy setback. "For example, a batch of 40,000 loach seedlings could have been sold for 20,000 yuan, but now it can only be sold for 1,600 yuan. The price difference is too big. Estimating labor and other inputs, the loss is too much."

Continuous losses , and the price of loach seedlings continued to fall, the remaining partners gradually became discouraged and left one after another. At the end of 2016, the remaining three partners, including Lu Fujian, all left, leaving only Li Kaijiang.

"I was a little discouraged at the time, but I felt that since I had contracted the people's land, I had to be responsible for the people and for my own entrepreneurial dream." Li Kaijiang immediately took over all matters of the aquaculture base and Start exploring new ways out.

Transformation of frog farming: the annual output value of the base has exceeded one million

Neijiang, Chengdu, Chongqing? Li Kaijiang conducted market surveys in many places and found that the frog breeding market in various places is good and in the A situation in which demand is high but supply is low.

The goal was set, but frog breeding technology was more difficult than loach breeding technology, so Li Kaijiang went to a frog breeding base in Dongxing District to learn the technology. For two months, Li Kaijiang lived and ate at the base, followed the "experts" to the fields and uphill slopes, studied hard, and quickly mastered the breeding techniques.

In March 2017, Li Kaijiang took out more than 1 mu of paddy field for trial cultivation. After careful breeding, more than 1,000 kilograms of frogs were successfully sold four months later, with an output value of more than 40,000 yuan.

In March this year, Li Kaijiang expanded the scale of frog breeding to more than 10 acres, plus more than 50 acres of yellow wax, white mullet, etc. By the end of this year, Li Kaijiang’s aquaculture base is expected to achieve an annual output value of over one million Yuan. "I just signed a contract in Songlin Village to transfer 30 acres of paddy fields, all of which will be used to raise frogs." Li Kaijiang calculated that by the end of next year, the entire aquaculture base is expected to achieve an annual output value of 2.5 million yuan.

Seeing that Li Kaijiang’s aquaculture is booming, surrounding villagers are eager to try it. Huang Shengjian, a villager from Group 4 of Wayao Village, has approached Li Kaijiang many times, hoping to learn frog farming from him. Li Kaijiang did not hide his secrets and said that as long as villagers are willing to learn, he is willing to teach for free.

To get rich, he never forgets his hometown people. When Li Kaijiang selects migrant workers for the base, he often gives priority to poor households and villagers whose land has been transferred. Zeng Yuanchun, a villager from Group 9 of Qinggang Village, is one of them.

From farming with an annual income of less than 1,000 yuan to a working income of 2,000 yuan per month, Zeng Yuanchun feels much younger and full of energy. "I worked at the base for two years, earning 2,000 yuan a month. Plus the annual land transfer fee, I have an income of nearly 30,000 yuan a year, which is much better than farming."

Now, in Driven by Li Kaijiang, the traditional aquaculture model of Purun Town has undergone considerable changes. The cultured species have begun to shift from the traditional "four major fishes" to highly profitable species such as white mullet, yellow wax croaker, frogs and hairy crabs. They are no longer Copying the past breeding experience, but adding more scientific and technological breeding methods, it will become easier for villagers to work nearby?