Niche-market entrepreneur raises chickens in local forest
Print Edition
AT sunset, some 2 million chickens take refuge in pine trees on a forested plot in east China’s Jiangxi Province.
“Compared with fast-growing chickens ready for slaughter within 20 days, our chickens live cage-free for at least 150 days in the woods,” said farmer Zhou Jing, a graduate of Canada’s Windsor University.
The twentysomething entrepreneur gave up her white-collar job in Canada in 2013 to return to her hometown in Fuzhou City in Jiangxi and raise free-range chickens in the forest, where her parents had farmed a 1,000-hectare plot for over a decade.
Walking under the moonlight, Zhou pointed at a pine tree where at least seven chickens were resting. They sleep among the tree branches to avoid attacks by snakes and yellow weasels at night, she explained.
Zhou’s father was the first to release chickens into the woods more than seven years ago.
Her father had no time to attend to them, but the birds survived in the forest on their own. The senior Zhou was happy to discover chicken dung works well as a fertilizer.
“Only those that are strong and good at flying can live long in the woods,” Zhou Jing said. “It’s the survival of the fittest.”
She believes that the chickens help meet Chinese consumers’ rising demand for quality food.
“More and more Chinese are buying overseas due to food safety concerns back home. They are no longer satisfied with fast food like fried chicken and hamburgers,” she said.
When Zhou studied in Canada, she brought produce raised by her parents to the Montreal International Food Exposition, where it proved wildly popular.
But it’s hard to make a good living in small-scale peasant agriculture, so Zhou has focused on filling a niche focused on recycling and sustainable rural living.
In addition to expanding her parents’ chicken-raising operations, she dug a ditch through the woods to channel wastewater into a pond, where she released snails and mudfish to help purify the water. The creatures also serve as prey for the softshell turtles Zhou raises.
The pond water is pumped into a paddy field to grow rice.
Collecting eggs in the forest can be a huge chore, but Zhou has turned the task into a tourist experience, allowing customers to forage for eggs at the farm.
Sold under the brand “Flying Phoenix,” Zhou’s chickens sell for three to four times the average market price.
Her farm generated revenue of 100 million yuan (US$15.44 million) last year, with a net profit of 23 million yuan.
The Chinese government’s supply-side reforms to modernize agriculture call for innovative, sustainable farming models like the one Zhou has developed.
Local authorities plan to invite high-profile chefs to make dishes using Zhou’s special forest-reared chickens.
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