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Young entrepreneur goes back to the land
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MANY young people from rural areas dream of living in one of China’s big cities. They work hard to make that dream come true, however there are some who are doing the opposite. They have given up successful careers in cities and return to the countryside to build a different life away from hectic urban centers.
Gu Xiaoming says he gave up a successful car accessories business eight years ago to open an organic strawberry farm that struggled in the early years in Yuhang, Hangzhou.
Gu is nothing like the stereotypical Chinese farmer with tanned face, rough hands and muddy shoes. He sports a modern haircut, Nike shoes and CK jeans, but he does love talking about strawberries.
He says he and his partners run Green Eagle Farm in a traditional way, which means “using the stems of strawberries to feed goats and sheep manure and ground rapeseed to fertilize the strawberries.”
He often walks around the farm with a loudspeaker repeating this over and over to customers.
Some customers say his strawberries “taste like ice cream” while others claim they are “the sweetest strawberries I’ve ever had.” The farm’s greenhouse is often packed on weekends even though the strawberries sell for 70 yuan per kilogram, almost twice as expensive as ordinary ones.
Some like picking strawberries at Gu’s farm because there they don’t need to crouch down since the berries are in one-meter-tall planters that stand in rows in the greenhouse.
There is also a restaurant serving organic lamb and chicken — both of which are from animals raised on the farm.
It hasn’t been a bed of roses from the start though as Gu says they almost went bankrupt because his poultry and lily flower business failed. After switching to strawberries, he says they didn’t sell well at first and many of them went rotten and a typhoon once ruined the farm.
“I didn’t give up because I know everybody has to eat and many people want high-quality food,” he says.
His life changed eight years ago, he says, when he returned to the brick factory where his parents had worked. At this point the entrepreneur says he had earned millions with a car accessories business. The brick factory was gone and in its place was a deserted garbage landfill, covered by weeds and ruined houses, he says.
“I remember thinking, ‘industry cannot replace agriculture,” he says. “What we gain from industry cannot replace what we gain from agriculture.”
The then 25 year old, who has no experience as a farmer, decided to invest all his money into establishing and running an organic farm on the deserted land in Yuhang.
His first decision was to cover the land with 20 centimeters of organic soil and then keep the land unused for two years to let the earth clean itself, he says.
Since 2006, Gu says he has raised over 1,000 chickens and 100 goats and transports cages of hens to wholesale grocery markets at 5am every day.
“I smell like chicken poop,” he says, smiling.
For two years they struggled to make ends meet, yet the increasing number of goats inspired him to plant strawberries because “goat excrement makes very good fertilizer for strawberries,” he says.
Growing organic strawberries has proven to be relatively straightforward, but selling them has been a different story, says Gu’s partner Li Jianzhong.
“Our strawberries are more expensive than ordinary ones and the size is also different,” Li says. “I almost lost confidence when I saw other strawberries selling well while ours rotted.”
During the early spring of 2010, Gu says he turned to Weibo and called on people to “help” him eat the strawberries before they went bad. More than 200 people responded and during the next week they ate all the strawberries, Gu says, adding Green Eagle Farm gained valuable advertising as word quickly spread about the great tasting berries.
It has also been chalked up as a valuable learning experience as Gu and his partners now understand the power of using the Internet to promote their farm.
Green Eagle is especially popular with families as the special planters make it so easy for both kids and adults to pick the strawberries.
“When I was a kid I spent my happiest time on this land,” he says. “I want more kids to have fun on this land and feel the connection to Mother Earth.”
How to get there
Public transportation: Take Metro Line 1 to Qiaosi South station, then bus 770A and get off at Wanchang Community stop. Walk north for 700 meters.
Drive: Donghu Road in Yuhang Area and stop in Wangchang Village.
Admission: 50 yuan per person. (Half price for kids under 1.3 meters, seniors above 70 years old, and the disabled.)
Strawberries: 70 yuan per kilogram
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