Ever since Zhang Zhongshan quit his job in the city and returned to his home in a county of Gansu province in 2017, he has been working to develop his business and help fellow villagers pursue prosperity.
As a new deputy from Gansu to the 14th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, Zhang hopes he can take the lead in promoting rural revitalization and promoting high-quality agricultural development in his hometown — Dongxiang autonomous county of Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture.
In response to the government's policy that encouraged those working outside the village to come back and start businesses, Zhang established a planting and breeding cooperative in Dongxiang after returning, attracting 70 of his fellow villagers to raise sheep together.
Dongxiang has a long history of raising a kind of sheep that can produce delicious mutton, and most local farmers make their living from them.
During training courses in 2017 organized by local governments in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, and Xiamen, Fujian province, Zhang said he learned new things about e-commerce and got the idea of developing his business via e-commerce platforms.
He then introduced his sheep in the livestreaming room and commissioned food processing enterprises to carry out fine segmentation and packaging of different parts of the sheep according to the needs of consumers. It amounted to local standardization of the mutton industry.
He also upgraded the traditional way of raising sheep, including the construction of standard sheepfolds, the purchase of modern breeding machinery and equipment, the promotion of efficient breeding technology, the application of modern technology and the internet, to improve the organizational management of sheep farms.
So far, Zhang's cooperative has raised over 1,500 sheep and 60 cows, which greatly helped increase the incomes of its members.
In early 2019, Zhang set up a company that focuses on the sale of local agricultural specialties, such as Dongxiang sheep, chicken, quinoa and Sichuan peppers. Annual sales volume reached more than 10 million yuan ($1.45 million) in 2022.
"The development of rural e-commerce is an important way to achieve rural revitalization, which can help promote the development and sales of agricultural products," he said. "It is also an important way to develop rural tourism and achieve the revitalization of rural talent."
"In recent years, many of my fellow farmers have benefited from it. Our lives have been greatly changed, and the gap between urban and rural living standards has become smaller."
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