Broiler breeding industry offers new hope for villagers

Surrounded by mountains and few lands suitable for farming, farmers in underdeveloped areas of Southwest China's Guizhou province used to have only two life choices: farming or working as laborers, with hardly any third option. The farmers in Zhanjie town, Qingzhen city of Guiyang, were no exception.

Now, relying on the development and expansion of the suitable broiler breeding industry, the farmers in the town are no longer confined to traditional practices. Instead, they aim for the increasingly refined intermediate links in the industrial chain, transforming into more professional and technically skilled farmers.

Mo Jin, a clever resident of the Gaole village, decided to switch to chicken breeding during the slow farming season after raising horses and transporting goods.

He also bought and sold agricultural products such as potatoes, rapeseeds, corn, and rice between urban and rural areas, earning some hard-earned money. Often, he would leave home before dawn and return after dark. Upon seeing that fellow villagers were starting to raise chickens and achieve stable profits, Mo Jin and other farmers gradually joined the chicken breeding team.

Mo Jin then realized that the development of the broiler raising industry involves multiple aspects, including the supply of building materials, facilities and equipment, labor, and services throughout the process, as well as transportation services. These aspects form a stable employment market, and the income of individuals engaged in these markets increases with market expansion.

In 2021, Mo Jin led the establishment of Qingzhen's first professional cooperative for socialized services in broiler breeding.

Currently, the focus is on meeting the demands for vaccine administration, which are exceptionally high. Mo Jin's vaccine administration business has expanded beyond Qingzhen, and the cooperative's technical workers have increased to 53 people. Each technical worker earns 20 yuan ($2.78) per hour. With an increasingly high market demand, these technical workers often voluntarily work for more than 10 hours daily, earning an average monthly salary of over 4,000 yuan.

Previously, most children in the village would not continue their education after completing the junior high school education. However, in recent years, the number of college students from the village has been increasing, thanks to benefits gained from the broiler breeding industry.