“The business forms of the base are quite rich, but management needs further improving. The farm must be exquisite and beautiful everywhere like a scenic spot since it is committed to tourism development,” said an expert from Culture and Tourism Department of Zhejiang, whose experts group came to Qinglian Temple Village of Haiyan County（hereinafter referred to as the Village）for an inspection of Baihemei Family Farm, which was applying to be built into a Grade 3A tourism experience base for fruits-picking.

In early summer, the Farm, with an area of 33 hectares, is full of life. In the fruits-picking area, you can find small tomatoes attracting groups of tourists to pick them; in the animal feeding area, you can find cattle, horses, ostriches, etc. enjoying themselves in the afternoon; and under the ceiling set up in the middle of the Farm, you can hear young people’s happy laughter from time to time...

But if you came here 10 years ago, what rose from this land was not the aroma of fruits, but the odour of pig manure.

“A new transformation is starting again,” said Lu Jianming. In the past 20 years, Mr. Lu, now 55 years old, first farmed, then raised hogs, and now he is committed to the integrated development of agriculture and tourism, so he has experienced three transformations so far.

From 5 to 400, and from a poor farmer to a millionaire

Located at the junction of Haiyan County, Pinghu City and Nanhu District, the Village used to be the largest hog raising village in Haiyan.

How large is it? During the peak period, 508 households of the Village raised hogs and the registered hogs in the stock reaching 36,211, and Mr. Lu was the largest hog raising farmer, according to Wang Lujun, secretary of the Party branch of the Village.

The profile on the wall of the conference room of the Baihemei Family Farm shows that he was once a famous “hog commander” of the Village.

“I started raising hogs in 1992 when I was 23 years old, and was one of the earliest ‘pig farmers’ of the Village. At the very beginning I just raised five sows and made money by selling piglets,” said he. Although it happened 30 years ago, he still remembered it clearly.

Before his marriage at the age of 22, he helped his parents with farm work, like farming and raising silkworms. “We used to grow the early rice and late rice a year. After the early rice was harvested, the latter had to be planted immediately. So it were like fighting a battle when we harvested and planted the rice almost simultaneously,” he expressed his helplessness for the family could not earn much money even though they worked very hard.

As time flew by, he got married. Getting married means he had to be independent.

“As a householder, I always wanted to earn more,” said he. “Hog raising was also quite crude in those days. All we had to do was feed them well, and then we could work in the fields in the spare time. It’s good when we had two jobs.” So he used up all his savings he had saved up for years to buy those five sows.

He loves studies and researches. When he was free, he went to the veterinary clinic of the Village to get know-hows on hog disease prevention. In the next year, he earned over 10,000 yuan from hog raising, and then he bought a few more sows to expand the scale.

In those days, most villagers were just engaged in farming. Finding he make money from hog raising, they learned from him and constructed pigpens to raise pigs.

By 2012, the number of his sows had totaled 400, and every year he sold over 10,000 hogs, bringing in a substantial income for the family.

What’s more, he introduced new breeds of sows, upgraded pigpens, constructed high-raised breeding rooms and baby hog nurseries. Remarkable and stable progress was made in his hog raising.

Soon he became a well-known “Mr. Lu Millionaire” in the surrounding villages, and other hog raising farmers also reaped the benefits from raising hogs.

However, hog raising led to serious pollution. Much hog manure was directly discharged into rivers, and blocked waterways. Chickens and ducks even could walk on the manure of the river directly to cross it. Hog raising brought in wealth to farmers, but polluted the Village seriously.

Looking back, he smiled wryly, “In those days villagers joked that you can get to our village without the help of a navigation system - the smell of the manure can navigate your way.”

From 2,000 to 0, and from a “hog commander” to a “farm owner”

Actually, Lu Jianming knew well the pollution from hog raising. As early as 2012, he began to reduce the hog manure pollution by cutting the number of hogs and constructing large methane ponds.

However, just as the new facilities for the pigpens were about to be put into use, the environmental carrying capacity of the Village had approached limit.

In March 2013, a campaign was launched in Jiaxing to reduce the number of hogs and improve hog raising quality. Prohibited and restricted areas for hog raising were designated. All the pigpens in the prohibited areas must be demolished, and those in the restricted areas were encouraged to be closed, and the illegal pigpens built on the farmland must be torn down.

Raising hogs is the main incomes for most families then, so it was difficult to tear down those pigpens. “If you demolish our pigpens, what shall we do to support ourselves?” Such questions puzzled local officials.

Actually, the biggest losers of tearing down pigpens were those large-scale hog raising farmers like Lu Jianming. “Facing such a situation, I knew demolishing pigpens was unavoidable,” said he. He immediately took a decisive action to tear down his pigpens and sold 2,000-plus hogs in the pigpens within two months, incurring huge losses.

“Spending half a lifetime on hog raising, I didn’t know what to do next,” said he. Fortunately, he soon cheered up.

In 2013, “No. 1 Document” of the CPC Central Committee proposed the term “family farm” for the first time. After careful consideration, the Village decided to guide villagers to turn to the production of high-quality fruits and order-based vegetables in accordance with local situations.

“Without hog raising, my land can still make money,” said he. He leased more than 13 hectares of land to grow soya beans after the rice was harvested, and that year, the soya beans sold well.

In the second half of 2013, he leased another 13 hectares of land to grow grapes, and established Baihemei Family Farm in that August. He became a farm owner.

From then on, what went out of his hands was not feeds any more, but seeds; and what was carried on his shoulders was not pig manure, but fruits.

With a big market demand and stable sales channel, the grape grown on his family farm sold well in the market. “In total, when the market is good, my annual income is similar to that from raising hogs, but our environment has been improved noticeably,” he said, full of pride. He spoke the villagers’ voice.

Following him, many hog raising farmers began to grow vegetables, fruits and cash crops, and the elderly farmers worked on his farm.     

Later, a series of projects were launched in Jiaxing to enhance living environment and build beautiful countryside. After being washed by rain water and efforts in environment improvement, the rivers of the Village became clean again. The Village has been reborn. 

From “one” to “three”, and from single crop planting to integrated agriculture-tourism development

After the hog raising was phased out, many villagers started growing rice again, and some traditional folk activities such as straw weaving reappeared.

“Straw used to be treasures for farmers. It could be used for cooking, and making mattress, ropes and straw mats,” said he. In 2016, after the rice was harvested, he held the first folk cultural festival on his farm, attracting a large number of urban tourists.

“Many urban residents came. They had known nothing about the straw weaving before, and found it very novel,” said he. From this he found a new development direction - integrated development of agriculture and tourism.

Later, he learned that as early as 2016, the “No. 1” Document of the CPC Central Committee had issued a series of policies to support rural tourism and agritainment. Preferential policies strengthened his confidence in making the third transformation.

So he traveled to different regions of Zhejiang and other provinces like Jiangsu to learn from others. After coming back, he made 15 hectares of grape-growing areas of the farm a tourism zone, planted more than 10 kinds of special fruits such as dragon fruits, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and cherries, and set up a picnic zone. Visitors could enjoy fruit picking all year round.

With the expanding of the farm, his daughter, Lu Jinting, a college graduate, took over the operation of the tourism of the farm in 2019. In the same year, Wang Hui, a graduate from Wuhan Sports University, joined as the  professional manager of the farm.

Two graduates born in 1990s brought new ideas to the integrated development of agriculture and tourism. That year, they introduced various agricultural experience projects such as crayfish angling, animal feeding, agricultural knowledge popularization, parties for traditional spring festivals, barbecue, camping, and scarecrow cheongsam show to attract residents.

In this spring, Lu Jinting’s mobile phone rang non-stop every day. It was the calls for reservations. During this May Day holiday, the daily tourists to the farm exceeded 1,000. “In recent years, we have succeeded in transforming our business, and now the revenue from fruits picking accounts for about 30% of the total. It is promising,” said she.

At present the Farm is applying to be built into a Grade 3A tourism experience base for fruits-picking. The experts have given her some suggestions on improving and upgrading the Farm, which has greatly inspired Lu Jianming. According experts’ suggestions, he is planning to put down hoes, put on a suit and go to learn from others and introduce digital facilities to make agricultural tourism more alive.

Nowadays, the Village has attracted an increasing number of tourists due to Baihemei Family Farm, beautiful natural scenery and profound culture. It has taken a new ecological development road: modern agriculture plus  tourism. Last year, it was honored as Future Rural Village of Zhejiang.

“From a hog raising village to an ecological village, ours has achieved a tremendous change,” said Wang Lujun, who has witnessed the transformation of the Village. In the future, the Village will make more efforts to accelerate the integration of the first, secondary and tertiary industries based on its original rural appearance and rural scenery to build a rice growing-based and industry-led future rural village model in the suburbs of Jiaxing.