Interview with Liu Chang, Chairman of New Hope: Adhere to high-quality development and help rural revitalization

Rural revitalization strategy, the "ballast stone" of high-quality development. Recently, the report of the 20th National Congress once again proposed to comprehensively promote rural revitalization, adhere to the priority development of agriculture and rural areas, adhere to the integrated development of urban and rural areas, and smooth the flow of urban and rural factors. From a high roof, how will listed companies in the industry implement and practice? To this end, Titanium Media APP interviewed Liu Chang, chairman of New Hope (000876.SZ), a leading agricultural and animal husbandry leader.

"This formulation has further strengthened our future direction: adhere to high-quality development, actively participate in the rural revitalization strategy, and drive more industrial chain partners and farmers to increase income and become wealthy." Liu Chang told Titanium Media APP: "The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China leads the future, plans the grand goals and major policies for the development of the cause of the party and the country in the next 5 years or even longer, and points out the direction for the development of enterprises. ”

Liu Chang, Chairman of New Hope

Liu Chang introduced that since 2022, New Hope has conscientiously implemented the decision-making and deployment and regulatory requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, strengthened the mission of leading enterprises in the agricultural and animal husbandry food industry, leveraged the capital market, fully implemented various measures to stabilize the economy, brought farmers to benefit farmers, deeply implemented the concept of high-quality development, served the rural revitalization strategy, and always committed to making the agricultural and animal husbandry food industry related to people's livelihood bigger and stronger.

Adhere to high-quality development

High-quality development, a complex system engineering, New Hope as a 40-year-old agricultural leader, the future to continue to play a leading role in demonstration, practice the mission will be a long-term theme, then, how will New Hope adapt to external changes, adhere to high-quality development?

"New Hope was first made as feed, and has developed and grown all the way with the pace of reform and opening up and China's agricultural modernization." Liu Chang still starts with the company's history and long-term strategy: since the listing of New Hope Liuhe in 1998, it has completed the domestic strategic layout, and has entered the upstream and downstream fields such as bulk raw material trade, poultry breeding, pig breeding, slaughtering and processing. Up to now, it is a large-scale agricultural enterprise with an annual income of more than 100 billion yuan and nearly 90,000 employees, with the world's leading feed industry, the country's leading poultry industry and pig industry. In 2018, African swine fever entered China, and in 2020, it encountered a new crown epidemic. Under the severe test of "double epidemic", the company has always adhered to the main business, adhered to the belief of long-term doctrine and the direction of high-quality development, "in the face of complex domestic and foreign situations and cyclical fluctuations in the industry, we have not given up and wavered, but have followed the industry cycle, adjusted the development strategy in a timely manner, and adopted a series of measures to continuously reduce costs and increase efficiency, in exchange for the steady improvement and enhancement of various main businesses." ”

In terms of financial data, this result is remarkable. From January to September 2022, the company sold a total of 20.73 million tons of various feed products, continuing to rank first in the world; 410 million chicken and duck fry were sold, 490 million hairy chickens and ducks were slaughtered, and 1.23 million tons of chicken and duck meat were sold, maintaining the forefront in the country. From January to September 2022, the company sold a total of 9.9 million breeding pigs, piglets and fat pigs, ranking third in the country, with a year-on-year increase of 45%; 1.78 million hogs were slaughtered, a year-on-year increase of 54%; sales of pork products reached 310,000 tons, an increase of 49% year-on-year; Sales of various deeply processed meat products and prepared dishes 200,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 8%. Especially in recent months, in the face of repeated epidemics and market fluctuations, New Hope has also increased its efforts to slaughter pigs and pork slaughter, and actively guaranteed the supply of pigs and pork.

Talk about the future: strengthen agricultural science and technology support

While adhering to the direction of high-quality development, continuous investment in agricultural science and technology and attention to the construction of scientific and technological talents are strong support for the future development of New Hope. Liu Chang said that in recent years, New Hope has adhered to science and technology as the primary productive force, continued to invest in intelligent manufacturing, gene breeding and other fields, and continued to promote technology, model innovation and industrial iteration.

At present, New Hope has won the second prize of 6 national scientific and technological progress awards. In 2021, it applied for 308 patents, including 63 invention patents, with a total of 2,314 patents applied for and 1,515 authorized. In 2022, we launched the lighthouse project of digital transformation", Liu Chang introduced, the "lighthouse project" is based on the already existing digital capabilities in the early stage, aiming at the goal of "integration of industry and data, three complete and four modernizations", focusing on the six business scenarios of "research and development, breeding, production, supply chain, sales, and service" to carry out digital construction, establish a closed-loop system of business and digital operation, and continue value mining and continuous agile iteration in breeding process management, sales management, intelligent equipment application, etc.

In the field of "seed industry revitalization", which is highly valued by the party and the state, New Hope also has long-term investment and is showing results: in 2019, after several years of joint research with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Hope finally cultivated the "Sino-Singapore White Feather Meat Duck" with completely independent intellectual property rights, breaking the foreign monopoly. By 2021, driven by New Hope, Zhongxin Duck has achieved the sales of nearly 15,000 units of grandparents and parents, and 380 million products produced and sold. In order to master the autonomy of "pig chip", about 12,000 purebred pigs have been bred. Each 1,500-head purebred farm has a capacity of 3 million pigs.

It is worth mentioning that the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China also mentioned that the foundation of food security should be consolidated in all aspects, and the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land should be firmly adhered to.

"The raw material of feed is grain, and after 40 years of making feed, New Hope has a deep understanding of food security. This year, we are facing challenges such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and extreme weather, and we have put forward a clear 'food conservation action plan'. Liu Chang said that New Hope is continuously improving the comprehensive utilization efficiency of feed and reducing food consumption by optimizing breeding, optimizing feed formula and vigorously applying digital intelligent breeding technology.

Cultivate "green collars" and help rural revitalization strategies

The report of the 20th National Congress also mentioned that we should accelerate the construction of a strong agricultural country and solidly promote the revitalization of rural industries, talents, culture, ecology and organization. So, how is New Hope understood and practiced?

Liu Chang introduced that since 2018, the company has launched the "100,000 Green Collar Training Program", and by 2020 it will be upgraded to the "Fifth Five-Year Project for Rural Revitalization", giving full play to the role of a leading enterprise in the industrial chain organization, and promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural industries, talents and organizations through talent training, industrial cooperation, and small and medium-sized micro assistance.

The key to revitalizing the countryside lies in talent. In the past five years, New Hope's "Green Collar Training" program has carried out a total of 1,908 offline trainings, training nearly 75,000 people and training 13.5 million people online. "We have cooperated with Peking University and other universities to organize 'village chief classes', established school-enterprise cooperation bases in Shandong and Jiangxi provinces, and have built a multi-level 'green collar' cultivation system such as grassroots training, vocational education, and village manager training."

In China's A-share market, New Hope has the largest agricultural industry chain in China, as the "chain master" strung tens of thousands of agricultural entities, on the basis of sales services, through technical consultation, product development, small and micro loans and other forms, service and drive farmers to transform and upgrade together. In 2021, the company served more than 37,000 farms or farmers through feed sales, contracted white-feathered poultry farming with more than 4,000 farmers, and carried out contract pig farming with 1,860 farmers at the end of 2021. The company also gave full play to the advantages of core enterprises in the industrial chain, and provided a total of 51.2 billion yuan in guaranteed loans for 160,000 farmers, driving about 4,800 new standardized broiler and broiler duck farms with an inventory scale of 310 million, and driving nearly 2,500 new standardized pig farms with an inventory scale of 6 million. In 2021, the industry and finance platform served more than 13,800 supply chain customers, helping customers raise 6.8 billion yuan.

In the next step, New Hope will continue to conscientiously implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Party, base itself on the new development stage, implement the new development concept, and integrate enterprise actions into the overall situation of national development. "We must keep in mind the original intention and mission of 'benefiting the cultivators and the benefits of the eaters', adhere to the people-centered, build a safe and healthy agricultural and animal husbandry food industry chain by integrating global resources, serve the national rural revitalization strategy, help farmers increase income and become rich, provide consumers with safe, healthy, delicious and affordable food, and work hard to meet the people's higher quality of life, and make greater contributions." Liu Chang said. (This article was first published in Titanium Media APP, author| Huang Tian)