New model builds shared wealth in the countryside

Updated: 2013-07-18
By Xue Chaohua and Yang Feiyue ( China Daily )

Wei Mingguang, chairman of Gansu Joy Agricultural Technology Co.

For Wei Mingguang, the launch of a massive sunflower industrial park in Gansu province will mark the culmination of a journey that started more than a decade ago with just six bags of seeds and a small plot of land.

Wei heads leading local enterprise Gansu Joy Agricultural Technology Co Ltd. His company will run the industrial park, which is slated to begin production in September in the Lanzhou New Area.

The park covers an area of 42.3 hectares and involves a total investment of 1.87 billion yuan ($306 million).

When complete, it will be capable of producing 200,000 tons of refined sunflower seed oil and protein. The park will also house a national sunflower engineering technology exchange center.

The first phase of the new zone, covering an area of 65,000 square meters, will include one pre-processing line for sunflower oil with a capacity of 500 tons per day. It will feature one production line and one refinery line with a production capacity of 300 tons per day as well two packaging lines capable of handling 200 tons per day each.

The facility also comprises a technological center, storage houses, oil tank areas and break rooms for staff members.

Testing on the packaging line began this month, while other production lines will begin trial operations next month.

The company is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and leading environmental protection technologies. Six robots working together form the nation's largest and most advanced sunflower oil production line.

After the first phase of the park goes into service, it will provide 50,000 tons of high-end cooking sunflower oil as well as 77,000 tons of sunflower protein products annually.

The sales value is expected to hit 860 million yuan with a profit of 93.5 million yuan.

It is expected to generate tax revenue totaling 40 million yuan annually.

The production will require the cultivation of some 33,333 hectares of sunflowers.

Upon completion, the park can realize annual industrial output value of 3.23 billion yuan and contribute 390 million yuan in taxes, Wei said.

It will also drive the cultivation of sunflowers up to 133,333 hectares, adding 100,000 hectares compared with the first phase. It is expected to contribute an output worth 4.5 billion yuan each year.

Industry insiders noted the company will help sunflowers become the second agricultural pillar after tomatoes.

Vision

"Gansu Joy is a company that has great potential for development in the new area, and its sunflower industrial park project is not only highly efficient in water-saving but also will benefit a large number of farmers," said Liu Weiping, governor of Gansu province.

The park has been named one of the top 10 projects in the Lanzhou New Area by the Gansu provincial government.

"I hope the sunflower industrial park can bring exciting changes to the people living in the area, because there is a lot in sunflowers that can be used to our benefit," Wei said.

On the surface of the sunflower seeds, there is a black membrane called sunflower melanin that can be extracted and used to keep food fresh as well as to slow the aging process of human beings, Wei said.

He also mentioned that the cultivation of sunflowers could help attract visitors, giving a boost to the local tourism industry. Besides, it takes fewer resources to plant sunflowers than corn and other crops, especially in terms of labor and water costs, Wei said.

The sunflower seed oil production line in the park is the biggest and most advanced nationwide, said officials with the park. The "Westerner" sunflower oil, produced by Gansu Joy, has reached world's advanced level in terms of technology and quality and is the only one of its kind that can compete on the overseas market, Wei said.

Although the product has been accredited by the European Union and the Ministry of Agriculture, Wei has never seen it as a luxury item.

"The majority of targeted consumers are still the ordinary people because it's the only way for a product to enjoy constant development and staying power," he said.

At the moment, the company's products have made their way to various supermarkets in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and sales have been good.

Path to prosperity

The goal of Gansu Joy is to build itself into China's top oil brand, Wei said, who added that it has always been his dream to help farmers in the poor areas solve their food problems and offer urban people healthy food through the deep processing of sunflowers.

Born and bred in a rural area, Wei gave up his position as the youngest official candidate in the city of Wuwei's Minqin county, after seeing the huge potential in the sunny deserts.

Minqin county sits at the edge of Tengger Desert and is dry, with little rainfall year round. But the special climate conditions have made it an ideal place to grow certain crops. The abundant sunshine and pollution-free environment ensure the high quality of the crops grown there.

Wei gave three reasons why he chose to grow sunflower seed.

First, water resources are rare in Minqin county, which suffers severe land salinization and desertification, which make life difficult for many locals. Therefore, it is important to make full use of what favorable conditions there are, such as adequate sunshine, to develop water-saving crops with high added value, he said. In this way, it might help some farmers get out of poverty as quickly as possible.

Second, sunflowers have great potential to bring economic benefits and can thrive in drought conditions. In addition, it is simple to manage fields, which made it easy to popularize the crop in Minqin.

More importantly, there were very few sunflower seed oils on the market at the time, while similar products were very popular at the international market. So, he saw great prospects on the domestic market.

However, the domestic sunflower industry was underdeveloped, and there was huge room for improvement in terms of cultivated area, output and quality.

Third, the planted sunflowers were almost all used to produce snacks back then, and sunflower seed oil production was not industrialized.

Therefore, Wei resolved to start his sunflower business without hesitation and never looked back. For him, nothing has ever undermined his resolution in developing the sunflower industry.

In the spring of 1999, two years after Gansu Joy was founded, a sudden heavy snow all but crippled Wei's business, and he lost 1.93 million yuan, an astronomical figure to a person from a rural area.

"The local sunflower seeds were priced at less than 2 yuan per kilogram, but the seeds I bought from the US cost 75 yuan per kilogram, and the output per mu (0.07 hectare) is expected to reach between 200 and 300 kilograms," said Wei.

Because of the high price, farmers planted only one seed instead of several in a pit. But, in doing so, the single seed had greater difficulty breaking the ground. With the heavy snow, many of them failed to grow that year, Wei recalled with pain on his face.

Faced with the huge loss, Wei chose to shoulder it all by himself. Rather than lose faith, he wasted no time purchasing another batch of imported seeds to make up for the ones he had lost.

"I had to pay for the damages, so farmers can go on with their life," Wei said.

He offered seeds, mulching film and fertilizers to farmers for free, which brought their planting risks down to zero. He spent days hunkering down alongside farmers, digging pit after pit with his bare hands to check the development of seedlings.

"In fact, many people will have a tough experience at the beginning of their business, and I'm just one of them," said Wei.

Wei has always known the importance of scientific research in the development of a company. He picked out farmers who had received some education before or were willing to learn new things, and then gave them professional training on how to grow sunflowers.

This method had a good effect. Once the selected farmers began to prosper, many others followed.

Gansu Joy signs purchase orders with farmers to make sure their products can be sold immediately after harvest, completely addressing farmers' future concerns.

"In these past years, I have never pinched pennies in scientific research no matter how bad our financial straits are," Wei said.

His company has regularly invited experts and technicians from agricultural technology center to give lessons to farmers, which has helped many increase their incomes, thus greatly stimulating their enthusiasm for planting sunflowers. Some families are increasing their cultivation area year by year and gradually climbing out of poverty into wealth.

Fruition

Wei has introduced more than 200 high-quality sunflowers from abroad since 1998 and carried out more than 500 experiments on them.

His company has hosted exchanges between locals and experts from famous companies around the world as well as the Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Gansu Agricultural University. Together they explored various cultivation techniques that fit Minqin's distinctive conditions.

At present, Wei's company is cultivating more than 13,000 hectares locally, and it has developed one of the largest sunflower facilities nationwide.

The area of his sunflower crop is growing annually. Moreover, Wei's business strategy has increased the planting area across the country to more than 67,000 hectares.

Gansu Joy now has developed a completely packaged service that covers introducing the seeds as well as supplies, technical service, purchase, processing and sales. It has become a leading high-tech company in Gansu's agricultural industry.

In 2010, Wei decided to move into the capital market to better meet the financial needs of the rapidly developing company.

But he changed his mind after the company passed review by US Securities and Exchange Commission to be listed on the main board market of Nasdaq.

Wei decided that Chinese concept stocks would have a difficult time finding footing in the US stock market. Therefore, he decided to withdraw and come back to the domestic capital market.

His move quickly drew in many first-class domestic private equity firms, which officially became Gansu Joy's shareholders. Thanks to this, the company entered into a period of fast development.

In May 2011, Wei walked into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to attend the eighth National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology as a representative of scientific and technical workers in Gansu's agricultural industry.

In 2012, Gansu Joy's research and development of sunflower protein convenience food won a science and technology progress award from Gansu government.

In July 2012, the first sunflower photography competition was held in Minqin. More than 50 photographers captured the stunning scenery of sunflowers under the sun. "Sunflowers come in full blossom every July, and we'll hold a series of events to show them to great effect and attract friends from afar," said Wei.

Just as the sunflowers always face the sun, Wei said he believes that his business will follow the light of the future.

Yang Cheng contributed to the story.

Contact the writers at xuechaohua@chinadaily.com.cn and yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/18/2013 page18)