Huanren in early summer, the mountains are full of water, the color is bright. Along the Yonghuan Expressway, the scenery is beautiful and the country is picturesque. The meandering hun river is like a painting axis, slowly showing the style of Wunu Mountain and the beautiful lake and mountain colors. A tributary of the river slowly extends into Xiguan Village in Huanren Town, flowing through the chicken farm co-founded by Guo Shifen and her husband Lin Tianguo, and persistently advancing into the distance...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > from 50 chicks to 20,000 breeders</h1>
In 1980, Guo Shifen and Lin Tianguo, who had just married, did not have much joy for the newlyweds, and they did not have the energy to look forward to the future, because the current day was more critical. Lin Tianguo was brought up by his widowed mother, worked as a car worker in a social enterprise, and the family was almost destitute except for two parts of land and two rooms, and even had no decent furniture, and even borrowed foreign debt in order to get married. Marrying into the Lin family, Guo Shifen could not say whether he was happy or sad, like the rest of the people in the village, working in the commune during the day, going home to sleep at night, all day long, living a life of looking at the end, thinking only to return the famine as soon as possible.
As the spring breeze of reform blew into the countryside, it also blew out ripples of the calm muddy river water. In 1982, "self-employed" is a new thing, many people are not afraid to try, in the wait-and-see stage, Guo Shifen and his two sons have a sharp mind, feel that they should believe in the party's policies and seize this opportunity. At that time, there was only one decent electrical device in the house, the semiconductor radio, which was almost the only way for the two to understand the outside world. Through the broadcast, Guo Shifen's two sons heard the word "chicken professional household" and felt particularly stimulated, as if they suddenly poked open the skylight at the bottom of their hearts. "At that time, the concept in the northeast was relatively backward, and the emphasis was on the 'iron rice bowl', and both classmates and friends had formal jobs, and they simply looked down on us as individuals." Lin Tianguo recalled those days, and his words were bitter.
"The investment in raising chickens is not large, the countryside will raise them, and every family can't do without eggs, so they can definitely sell them." Just do it! The two men pieced together all their savings to buy 50 chicken chicks, and then vacated the family's warehouse overnight, and made a chicken room, working until dawn, and their waists could not stand up straight. Guo Shifen still remembers the scene at that time, "These 50 chicken chicks are the fate of the two of them, and they are eager to stay at the door of the barn every day, hoping that they will grow up quickly." "Although the chickens raised at that time were self-bred breeds and the egg production was not high, they really kept the young couple busy enough." Every morning early in the morning to push the cart to the market to sell eggs, come back to clean up the chicken coop, pick up eggs and pack, the house outside the house out of the house is not empty-handed, either carry the feed or repair this and that, there is always an endless work in hand, often busy to no time to eat, even at night can not sleep a whole night.
At that time, the conditions were harsh, and the hatching chickens could only be covered on the fire and covered with a quilt, commonly known as "holding chicken cubs". In order to successfully hatch the chicken chicks, Guo Shifen freed up the family's fire, and the two of them casually found a room in the house to sleep together. The eggs are placed in different wooden troughs according to the date of production, and then according to the order of the date, from the kangtou to the kangwei. Due to the hot kang head of the kang and the cool tail of the kang, in order to control the temperature of the incubation, it is necessary to move the wooden trough as a whole every two hours, and the kang head and kang tail change the order, otherwise the chicken chicks of the kang head will be heated to death. Once, because he was too tired during the day, Lin Tianguo overslept and failed to change the wooden trough in time, resulting in the two troughs of chicken chicks being heated to death. This was a big loss, and the heartache caused this seven-foot man to jump on his feet and cry. Since then, Guo Shifen's two sons have never slept a single night, nor have they ever had any negligence in raising chickens. From the initial 50 chicken chicks to the current 20,000 breeding chickens, Guo Shifen has always been careful and walking on thin ice, which has been done for 40 years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="71" > from 2 to 30 acres</h1>
Some people are ambitious in their bones, but the passion is not ignited. At that time, the countryside was full of the concept of stability, and until Guo Shifen raised chickens, the restless heart was completely activated. She bought a batch of chicken coops, which were changed from the original free range on the ground to centralized cages. This method of rearing is not unusual today, but in the early 1980s, centralized cage culture was definitely a historical precedent, and Huanren County was unique.
It didn't take long for the 50 chicks to become hundreds, and the old barn on the 2-point ground could no longer accommodate it, so Guo Shifen found the town commune. The town commune saw that the young people were really good, not only could bear hardships, but also had many ways, cage chickens, fire hatching made it look decent, and they were able to do things, so they approved a 50 square meter place behind the old house for them to build a decent chicken house.
With the support of the town commune, Guo Shifen was not satisfied with the small fights like earth guns and cannons. After applying, with the support of the town government, the land bureau and the county government, Guo Shifen used the 2 acres of abandoned farmland that the production team had abandoned for many years to build a chicken house and set up the first chicken farm in Huanren County, Xiguan Chicken Farm, and she wanted to make the chicken farm professional and large-scale. There's also a little vignette here. At that time, there was no concept of "chicken farm" in Huanren County, and when Guo Shifen went to the industrial and commercial office to apply for a business license, the clerk was confused and did not know how to approve the license, so he told Guo Shifen that anyway, the chicken farm did not pay taxes, the sign could be hung first, and the matter of the license was suspended. This idea was rejected by Guo Shifen, who believed that only with a license could there be an official seal, and it was only right to go out to run errands. Finally, under her soft and hard bubble, the industrial and commercial office gave her a license for the first chicken farm in Huanren County.
With new licenses and new venues, breeding technology also needs to be innovated, and relying on the method of "holding chicken cubs" on the kang will not work. So Guo Shifen and his two sons began to go out, to other areas to learn from other people's advanced breeding experience, after returning, they did it themselves, imitated a wooden mechanical incubator, and then bought a more advanced incubator, in this way, the mechanization of the chicken farm finally formed a scale.
Since raising chickens is considered to be "dare to be the first", it is necessary to adhere to this "first" word to the end. With a good product, Guo Shifen began to "bark". The two of them not only posted advertisements everywhere, but also published advertisements in newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, which was definitely a new thing at the time, and Guo Shifen's Xiguan Chicken Farm suddenly became a well-known star enterprise in Huanren County. "It was in 1987, looking for someone to record an advertisement for selling chicken chicks, I needed to send the video tape to the broadcast station of the TV station, the broadcast station was on the top of the five women's mountain, I rode the family's single-cylinder tricycle, all the way to the top of the mountain, the scenery on the five women's mountain was so good, there was no time to watch," Lin Tianguo recalled.
In addition to advertising, Guo Shifen's two sons frequently run exhibitions around, Shenyang, Jinzhou, Anshan, Tieling and other cities, as long as it is a new product to see, to learn, on the one hand, to find a way to sell their chicken chicks, on the other hand, is to broaden their horizons, learn advanced chicken breeding experience. At the exhibition, Guo Shifen found that a new type of equipment - nipple drinking fountain - exhibited in Shanghai, which is more hygienic, more water-saving, and can greatly improve the survival rate of chickens, so he immediately bought it back and asked experts to install and debug. Xiguan Chicken Farm became the first chicken farm in the county to introduce such equipment, and it was not until two or three years later, when experts came to Huanren County to introduce advanced chicken breeding experience, that this equipment was mentioned, and Guo Shifen had been using it for many years. "In the past, when we were staying at home and staying on the ground, we saw few things, like frogs at the bottom of the well, and could only see the sky as big as the edge of the well. If you want to change, you have to go out and walk around, see the world more, the outside world is too big, there are too many good things. Guo Shifen said.
In those years, houses were built one after another around the Xiguan Chicken Farm, and in order to avoid affecting the daily life of the villagers, the two families contracted 30 acres of wasteland elsewhere. The division of labor between the two families is clear, Guo Shifen is in charge of the affairs of the chicken farm, and Lin Tianguo is responsible for infrastructure, maintenance, sales, etc. With the iterative update of chicken breeding technology and equipment, in 2006, Guo Shifen built the county's largest "Liaodong Tianci Breeding Poultry Demonstration Farm" on this land, and today this huge billboard still stands next to the highway and has long become a well-known landmark nearby. Not long ago, the government invested more than 500,000 yuan to help Guo Shifen build a large septic tank of 1,000 square meters to reward her as an industry leader and contribute to the county's aquaculture industry over the years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" > from a capacity gap of 60% to a product export of 60%.</h1>
Guo Shifen's two sons took the lead in "going to the sea", and the chicken farm became bigger and bigger, attracting many people to follow suit, and soon led to the development of the breeding industry in the county. Every day, many people come to Guo Shifen's home to learn the scriptures, and both of them are enthusiastic people, and those who often come do not refuse, and they know everything. Over time, Guo Shifen felt that this verbal "guidance" was of limited help to other farmers, so he simply opened a breeding supplies store to provide farmers with a full set of equipment support and technical support. For a long time, all the chicken farms in Huanren County and the surrounding areas had business ties with Guo Shifen, and most of the breeding chickens in Huanren Were from Guo Shifen's hands, "I dare say that all the people in Huanren County have eaten my eggs." Speaking of this, Guo Shifen showed a proud smile.
As the saying goes, there are millions of people in the family, and those with hairs do not count. The aquaculture industry is profitable, but the risk is also very large. In the two years of 97 and 98, egg prices fell sharply, the breeding industry suffered a heavy blow, many chicken farmers lost everything, and Guo Shifen's chicken farm lost more. "When the egg market was good, 5 yuan was more than a pound, and there was only 1 yuan for money in those two years, and it could not be sold, and it had to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year." The two of them thought about stopping here and switching to other business, but considering that they had invested half a lifetime of hard work, they were still reluctant to do so. "One is that I don't know what else to do to change careers, and the other is that if the egg price goes up after a while, it is too late to raise chickens now." In those two years, there were many chickens, so the price of chickens was low, and they could only stand up hard, and they had to hold on to borrowing money. Guo Shifen said.
Although Guo Shifen's chicken farm continues to lose money, her breeding supply store is still open. "It's not easy for everyone, and if I close the door, it will be even more difficult for other farmers to live." My old Lin is a party member, and we are still a big chicken farmer in the county, so we have to stand up at this time. At that time, everyone went to the store to buy chicken chicks, feed, chicken coops, etc. on credit, and a total of millions of dollars were paid. I will give them something, the difficulty is not one or two people, it is the whole industry, and it depends on everyone's concerted efforts to get through. "More than 20 years have passed, although there are still more than 300,000 people who went out on credit that year and have not returned, but after experiencing this crisis, the prestige and status of Guo Shifen's two sons in the hearts of the majority of chicken farmers have been greatly improved."
At the end of the 1990s, the annual production of poultry eggs by all farmers in the county could only meet 30%-40% of the county's demand, and the remaining demand gap depended on the supply of other cities. Guo Shifen saw that there was such a huge market gap, and he was unwilling, why can't the people in our county eat our own eggs? This question has always bothered her. "At that time, the farmers were all fighting alone, responsible for their own production and marketing, not only the sales were unstable, but also there was a situation of mutual price pressure and malicious competition, and then the market would be chaotic." In 2000, the first year of China's accession to the WTO, Guo Shifen's two sons were also inspired to organize and call on farmers in the county to establish the "Huanren County Poultry Industry Association". Because of the prestige of the two of them in the industry, the association soon took shape, and since then, the aquaculture industry in Huanren County is no longer a mess, but a joint force, like a fist to resist risks and meet challenges. Lin Tianguo, as the president of the association, not only shared his breeding experience with everyone, but also often led the members of the association to run exhibitions in major cities, open up markets, and learn to introduce advanced breeding technology. In just a few years, the scale of farming among the members of the association has doubled several times. With the continuous expansion of the overall scale of breeding in the county and the doubling of production capacity, Guo Shifen hired a broker for the association, not only to let the outside world know Huanren, but also to sell the county's agricultural and sideline products to other cities, through this channel to truly create a Huanren business card.
Today, the annual production of poultry eggs by farmers in the county can not only fully meet the needs of the county, but also 60%-70% of the output is mainly sold to other markets. From a capacity gap of 60% to a product export of 60%, it can be said that the establishment of the "Huanren Poultry Industry Association" is a watershed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="74" > from thriving to blooming everywhere</h1>
After 40 years of careful work in the aquaculture industry, Guo Shifen's two sons are almost 70 years old. The only son, unwilling to inherit his father's business, settled in Jinzhou after graduating from university.
Speaking of children, Guo Shifen was full of guilt, it was nothing to suffer herself, she felt that the most sorry was the child. When I first started raising chickens, the child was not yet 1 year old, and the two families took care of the chicken chicks more than they did, often putting the children on the kang and turning around to serve the chickens. Once, Guo Shifen was working in the chicken room, heard the "grunting" sound of the back room, thought that the child fell from the kang, frightened her to run back to the house, a look, it turned out that the child himself was tired of playing and fell asleep, planted into the hatching chick's trough, at the moment is holding the egg and sleeping.
"Maybe I've watched too many chickens since I was a child, and when I grow up, I get bored." Guo Shifen relieved himself in this way. "My son can come back four times a year after going to work, and now that my grandson is in junior high school, his studies are heavy, and he can only come back until the New Year." Speaking of this, Guo Shifen was a little choked up. The two of them also thought about giving up raising chickens and going to their sons' side to retire, but they were reluctant to give up their own chicken farm built brick by brick.
Although the son is reluctant to take over, the experience and industrial model that Guo Shifen and his two sons have summed up in their lives have not been "lost", and they have cultivated more "successors" with a broader mind through another form. Now several large farms and breeding supply stores in the county are established with the support of Guo Shifen's two sons, with tens of millions of profits every year, and the scale and production capacity have far exceeded Guo Shifen's chicken farm. "We're old, the stage is reserved for young people, they're more cultured and capable, and I'm willing to help the kids get things done." Guo Shifen said.
Guo Shifen's two sons have always been "capable people" in the eyes of the villagers and even the whole county, although they are older, they have always maintained a positive and loving mentality, and they can do anything famous.
Now the chicken farm employs more than ten workers, everything no longer need to do it personally, free up energy, Guo Shifen began to tend to the yard, raise flowers and trees, and forced a chicken farm to become a paradise, apricot blossoms, peach blossoms compete to open, apples, grapes harvest year after year. This chicken yard has been praised by provincial, municipal and county departments at all levels for many times. "The fruit trees and greens in my yard are chicken manure, there is no fertilizer at all, pure green, absolutely healthy." Guo Shifen said with a smile.
Lin Tianguo also devotes more time to his hobbies, and his photographic works have won awards in national and provincial and municipal competitions many times, among which the work "Dreams Come True" that reflects rural themes is his most proud work. Now, Lin Tianguo serves as the chairman of the Huanren County Photographers Association, and from time to time he personally leads the team to organize photography activities and go out to collect style. "I just can't stay idle, if I hadn't raised chickens in the first place, I could have done anything else." Lin Tianguo said triumphantly.
"Thanks to the reform and opening up and a series of relevant support policies of the party, our family life has been improved, our career has made small achievements, and we must not forget to repay the society." Guo Shifen has sponsored two poor students until graduation, every New Year's Day will bring gifts to the poor families in the village to comfort, on the mobile phone to see the "water drop chip" information, she will not be stingy...
Over the years, Guo Shifen's family has not forgotten the villagers, become the leading goose of hard work and prosperity, and has been praised by the provincial, municipal and county departments at all levels for many times, such as "Liaoning Province Civilized Family Pacesetter Household", "Benxi City Labor Model", Benxi City "The Most Beautiful Green Family", "Benxi City Lei Feng Pacesetter", Benxi City "Five Good Civilized Family Pacesetter Households"... Not long ago, Guo Shifen's family was also selected as the "most beautiful family" at the provincial level by the Liaoning Provincial Women's Federation.
In the past 40 years, Guo Shifen has received countless rewards, and behind each heavy honor is their ultimate efforts, persistent persistence and unrequited efforts.
"In this life, I have done one thing, which also reflects the value of my life, and I hope to be useful to society, helpful to the villagers, and able to set an example for future generations." Guo Shifen said.
(Thanks to Huanren County Women's Federation for assisting in the interview)
Reporter/Chen Tong Li Wenyong
Women magazine No. 7, 2021