Liu Jinxiu, Director-general of the Luotian Jinxiu Forestry and Animal Husbandry Professional Cooperative, is one of the trainees and beneficiaries of the MTCP2 Program in China.
In 1979, at the age of 13, Liu Jinxiu had to work in the south because of the poverty faced by her family. But the hardships of life did not let Liu Jinxiu give up the pursuit of a better life. Through self-studying, she completed all the courses of junior and senior high school and then finished her undergraduate course all by herself.
In the autumn of 2002, she returned to her hometown in Luotian, where she was determined to realize her dream of starting a business. In 2004, she and her father resolutely walked into the mountains, set up two grass huts, and began to raise goats.
Entrepreneurship is not easy. After overcoming the problems of capital turnover, lack of breeding technology, the capital cost was fully recovered in the third year with a net income of more than 80,000 Chinese yuan (USD 11,689). During this time, the right to use nearly 1,000 mu of mountain forests has also been transferred to them.
To promote the development of the goat-raising industry, Liu Jinxiu, together with other five local goat-raising households, registered and established the Luotian Jinxiu Forestry and Animal Husbandry Professional Cooperative in September 2007. It is the first goat-raising cooperative in Luotian County and even in Huanggang City.
From 10 to 13 December 2014, as a representative of the Joint implementation Unit of the MTCP2 China Project, Liu Jinxiu went to India to participate in the cooperative leader training organized by the project. During the four-day training and exchange, Liu Jinxiu was deeply moved by the responsibility and strength of Indian farmers, especially women farmers, to shoulder the responsibilities and strength of family and community development, which further strengthened her confidence in relying on their Cooperative to drive home farmers to become rich. After Liu Jinxiu returned to China, AMI, MTCP2 partner in China, maintained close contact with her through various channels and ways to provide timely and necessary guidance and support for the growth and development of the Cooperative.
Over the years, Liu Jinxiu made remarkable achievements in promoting the development of local industries and increasing farmers’ incomes through the Cooperative. In practice, she operates the Cooperative along the following lines:
- Innovate the mechanism of joint interests and implement precise docking services. For example, for poor mountain farmers, the Cooperative provides free goat breeding, technical information and buys back goats at the end of the year so that poor farmers can raise goats without capital. For farmers who can afford to buy goats, the Cooperative is responsible for technical guidance, production standards extension, and overall buy-back, to helping farmers to sell goats. For farmers who have mountain forest resources and have set up goat houses and want to raise goats on a large scale, she provides guidance on the standardization construction and improvement of goat breeds free of charge, and she is also responsible for providing technical support and goat recycling. For farmers who want to raise goats but lack funds, Liu Jinxiu contacts banks to help them obtain bank loans.
- Actively seek government funding to carry out reproductive ewe insurance. To reduce the risk of goat breeding, Liu Jinxiu sought investment support of 60,000 yuan (USD 8,766) from relevant departments of the county government. The Cooperative, together with the County Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau and the China United Property Insurance Company, carried out insurance trials on 5,355 ewes raised by members of the Cooperative, thus reducing the risk of member breeding.
- Setting up breeding standards and norms, implement full service. To improve the output and quality of the large-scale industrial breeding of the Cooperative, Liu Jinxiu implemented the “Four-unified model” among goat-raising members, namely, unified planning and design of goat houses, unified breed improvement, unified epidemic prevention, and technical training, and unified production quality and safety standards. The Cooperative and its branches have netted more than 50% of the large goat farmers in the county, actively promotes the standardized and scientific goat-raising model of ‘1235’, provides free guidance to the members from the aspects of goat house construction, the introduction of goat-breeding, grass-planting, breed improvement, and disease prevention, and provides the members with prenatal, midterm and postnatal services for goat-raising.
The Luotian Jinxiu Forestry and Animal Husbandry Professional Cooperative has been established for more than 10 years, which has driven 8,100 goat-raising members with an average annual income of 25,700 yuan (USD 3,755). Luotian County members alone put more than 200,000 goat meat on the market every year, and the Cooperative has also promoted the development of the goat industry on a large scale and standardization in the Dabieshan Mountain.
Looking back on the experience of running the Cooperative, Liu Jinxiu summed up three experiences: first, strengthening the standardization construction is the foundation of the Cooperative; second, providing serialized services is the foundation of the survival of Cooperative; and third, promoting industrialization is the successful way of the Cooperative.
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