"Seeing everyone working so hard, I won't be too late if I don't change!" Qiu Jianliang, who returned to his hometown in Guangxi to run a pig farm, said with emotion.
With the implementation of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategies, more and more young people choose to return to their hometowns, transforming from migrant workers who have left their hometowns to entrepreneurs who return home to start their own businesses.
However, most of them choose entrepreneurial projects with low entry barriers-setting up farms, opening small shops, etc. There are more and more homogenized competitors, rising material costs, and intensifying price wars, and they have become many returning entrepreneurs. The dilemma that has to be faced.
Wang Yuling, a lecturer in the School of Economics and Management of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University and team members, conducted surveys and interviews with 41 returning entrepreneurial youths from 2020 to 2021, and found that the entrepreneurial fields of the returned entrepreneurs in the county are relatively concentrated, mainly derived from local characteristic agricultural products. E-commerce, business services, modern logistics and life service industries.
The lack of awareness of innovation and entrepreneurship is a common shortcoming among young entrepreneurs returning to their hometowns in the county.
In the increasingly fierce competition, whether to fall helplessly on the beach or open up a new world through learning and adjustment depends on the mentality and vision of young entrepreneurs.
Low-threshold projects are the choice of most returning entrepreneurs
Every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning, Qiu Jianliang rode a motorcycle to his pig farm, took out several bags of different feeds from the warehouse, mixed them evenly in a large iron bucket, and poured them into the trough. The piglets in the pen rushed to the trough to eat. , He turned on the speaker to play music to the pig, and then flushed the pig house with a hose.
"This pig is more enjoyable than us." Qiu Jianliang laughed and teased.
This year is the third year that Qiu Jianliang has returned to his hometown to start a business.
Before, he and his wife ran long-distance freight transportation outside, and after removing car loans and gas expenses, they could save up to RMB 60,000 to 70,000 in a year.
After learning of the preferential policies for returning home to start a business, Qiu Jianliang and his wife returned to their hometown of Menggong Town, Qintang District, Guigang City, Guangxi.
“Most of the rural children have fed pigs when they were young, and they are familiar with the operation of raising pigs. It is safer to open a pig farm.” Qiu Jianliang sold the truck and built the pig farm, with the remaining money buying piglets and feed.
In 2019, affected by the African swine fever, the number of pig farms in various regions has been greatly reduced, and the price of pork has risen sharply. In many areas, the price of pigs has risen by more than 50%, even breaking the record of the highest pig price in 2016.
Because of the proper control of the pig inventory and proper prevention and control, Qiu Jianliang's first batch of pigs was almost sold out and he made money.
Soon, Qiu Jianliang was elected by the villagers as the village chief in the general election of the village committee. As a party member, he was committed to helping poor villagers get rid of poverty.
Many poverty-stricken households in the village have invested money in his pig farm through the microloans provided by the state policy. The dividends at the end of the year give them more expectations.
Unlike Qiu Jianliang, Yang Mei from Lingqing Village, Menggong Town, Qintang District, Guigang City, Guangxi Province, opened a barber shop near a junior high school in a township after her return home. Student groups are her main source of customers.
After graduating from junior high school, Yang Mei went to Shenzhen to work with her friends in the same village and became a female assembly line worker in a toy factory in Shenzhen.
On the endless assembly line, the freshness of the big city was quickly wiped out. The high-intensity monotonous work made Yang Mei feel very depressed, but she only had a junior high school education and it was difficult for her to find a better job in Shenzhen.
After persisting for 3 years, Yang Mei finally chose to return to her hometown.
Following the advice of her family, she participated in a free training course for beauty salons and opened a barber shop in the town when she returned.
Compared with the boring factory life before, this kind of life is more vivid and the income is more stable. At the beginning, she felt that "this kind of life is not bad."
The Xianyang Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League once conducted a survey of 282 returning rural youths. The results showed that 89% of the respondents chose labor-intensive industries in the choice of entrepreneurial projects.
These rural youths who have returned to their hometowns come from the rural areas of the subordinate counties of Xianyang City. Their industries are mainly concentrated in labor-intensive industries such as construction and transportation, catering services, and agricultural products processing. They are small in scale, simple in structure, low in product technology, and lack of external Support, there are many obstacles in starting a business.
In the survey, in addition to their own entrepreneurial needs, some rural youth returning to their hometowns to start a business are forced to earn a living. This proportion accounts for about one-third of the respondents.
77.8% of migrant workers will choose agriculture-related industries when they return to their hometowns to start businesses, of which 46.4% are farming, 10.4% of agricultural products processing, 9.2% of agricultural material distribution, and 5.2% intend to engage in sightseeing agriculture.
This survey result shows to a certain extent that rural youths have certain limitations when they face project choices in the process of starting a business after returning to their hometowns.
Homogeneous competition makes entrepreneurs difficult
Qiu Jianliang has a notebook that records the income and expenditure of piglet cost prices and various feed prices.
Although he tasted the sweetness of pig raising in 2019, due to the rapid price increase of pork, many pig farms will be opened in the town in 2020.
As the price of corn has risen, the price of corn-based pig feed has also risen.
Considering that the increase in the supply of live pigs will definitely reduce the profit margin, Qiu Jianliang did not choose to expand the scale of breeding.
Seeing that newly joined farmers are constantly looking for new breeds of feed or participating in training in various breeding techniques, and the breeding methods are more scientific, this made Qiu Jianliang anxious.
Yang Mei’s barber shop is no longer optimistic. The rent of the barber shop is increasing year by year. Relying on students to cut hair does not make much money. Nearby barber shops also launch so-called new haircuts from time to time to attract customers.
"In this small town, there are not many people who dye their hair and perm, so I just make money for shampooing and cutting hair." Yang Mei said.
Chen Zhiming, who graduated from Jiangxi Modern Vocational and Technical College, returned to his hometown in Anyuan County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province after working in Shanghai for a year.
After investigation, he raised money to set up a frog farm to breed black-spotted frogs, while running the local specialty online store opened when he was in college, while raising frogs.
After two years of hard work, seeing the frog farm gradually moving on track, the sudden new crown pneumonia epidemic broke his original plan.
At that time, the public began to resist game, and Chen Zhiming could only suspend the breeding of black-spotted frogs.
In May 2020, Chen Zhiming, who was staying at home due to the epidemic, heard that there is a courier point in the town for transfer. Considering that his online store sends more goods, and opening a courier point can just increase his income. Chen Zhiming spent 100,000 yuan to join. This express.
It was in the off-season at the beginning, and the income was not much.
Starting in November, the courier points ushered in the annual peak of navel orange shipments.
Chen Zhiming and his mother packed and posted orders, and hired three more workers, and they had to be busy until midnight.
When the express delivery volume is large, there are more than 1,000 pieces a day, which seems to be profitable, but Chen Zhiming once settled the accounts and averaged a profit of 1 yuan per piece of navel orange, excluding the workers' wages, the profit of the express delivery point was only 100 yuan per day.
“It’s exhausting to move goods every day. Because of the pressure of competition among peers, only small profits but quick turnover can be achieved. It is necessary to guarantee 300 boxes a day to not lose money. All the money earned is hard money.” At the end of the year, Chen Zhiming discovered that he had sent navel oranges to his courier station. There are fewer and fewer customers. The other express outlets in the town used low prices to attract customers, and most of the old customers were lost.
In order to cope with the price war, Chen Zhiming formulated a discount for more than 5 free door-to-door delivery. Although some customers were won, the profit was not enough to pay for the gas.
Meng Zhiming, Dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Guangxi Normal University, believes that in recent years, the state has continued to introduce a number of policies to support migrant workers, college graduates, and retired soldiers to return to their hometowns to start businesses. Strategy and a new force to promote the economic and social development of the county.
Some entrepreneurs who have returned to their hometowns have poor understanding of various entrepreneurial support policies and low ability to identify entrepreneurial risks during the entrepreneurial process, and they have a certain herd mentality in the selection of entrepreneurial projects, which has led to serious homogeneity of entrepreneurial projects. .
This will lead to problems such as weak competitiveness of entrepreneurial projects, difficulty in expanding their scale, and insufficient development motivation, which in turn will affect their entrepreneurial success rate and project survival rate.
Entrepreneurship in rural areas requires a variety of ideas, and it’s too late if you don’t change it
"Pig farms are opening more and more. Everyone is thinking about how to raise pigs stronger and sell them at a better price. The competition for pig breeding is fierce. This year is difficult. I don't have time to change it."
For this reason, Qiu Jianliang often pays attention to the various breeding skills in the farmer exchange group, and frequently participates in various training activities recommended by the group. He has participated in various trainings organized by the town, district, and city.
By learning sow breeding and other breeding techniques, Qiu Jianliang's pig farm has greatly improved the sow farrowing rate, and the cost has also been reduced.
In addition, after visiting the modern production and breeding of large pig farms, he also transformed his own pig farm to improve breeding efficiency and save manpower and other costs.
Now, what Yang Mei does most on weekdays is to practice on the false head model. “The haircut is very particular, and the angle, speed, length, shape, etc. must have inspiration and proficiency.”
In addition, Yang Mei regularly participates in hairdressing training courses.
"Although it is another matter to say whether I can attract new customers, I don't want to learn it. If other stores learn new technologies, they may have new ways to attract people, and my store will lose customers." Yang Mei said .
Through many regular trainings and always paying attention to the hairstyle trends of young people, Yang Mei gradually mastered the "keeping up to the times" hair cutting technology. In addition, the store also added beauty and skin care items, such as shave massage, face wash and skin care, etc. , Which has reaped many repeat customers.
With the flow of people from the express delivery point, Chen Zhiming started a sideline business, selling some commodities and the well-known snack sour radish in his hometown, and he could earn more than 3,000 yuan a month.
After spending more than 100,000 yuan to merge another express delivery, the delivery volume of the express delivery point has increased, and the income has gradually increased.
At the same time, Chen Zhiming started the business of raising frogs. Since he only needs to spend some time to feed in the morning and evening, he is more flexible and free, so he does not conflict with the work of the express delivery point.
In order to help his family sell the navel oranges produced in the contracted orchard, Chen Zhiming asked a friend from the media to help, and sold seven or eight hundred copies in two days. This made Chen Zhiming feel "the power of the Internet is really powerful", and he also pays more attention to e-commerce. Development.
He sketched a blueprint for the development of "aquaculture-e-commerce-logistics" in his mind.
Although Chen Zhiming still bears more than 500,000 yuan in debt, he is still optimistic.
In his view, the agricultural industry exists for many years, and the threshold for entrepreneurship in rural areas is not high, and there are many people who are easy to follow suit. Therefore, starting a business in rural areas requires a variety of ideas and diversified industries. Young entrepreneurs must be good at learning and observing, and dare to learn Pioneering attempts in the field.
Meng Zhiming, Dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Guangxi Normal University, suggested that young entrepreneurs returning to their hometowns should avoid falling into the pit of homogeneous competition. They must first understand the entrepreneurial support policies and measures issued by the state and various localities, especially in tax reduction and exemption, entrepreneurship. Strive for more support in terms of subsidies, venue support, and entrepreneurial training services; secondly, we must improve our own ability to identify entrepreneurial risks, and combine local characteristics and advantages in the selection of entrepreneurial projects, and on the basis of in-depth market research. Make rational choices to avoid blindly following the crowd and homogenous competition; in addition, entrepreneurs must actively connect with local industries, establish a multi-level and all-round cooperation mechanism, and form a symbiotic relationship, thereby increasing the success rate of entrepreneurship.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang Correspondent Qiu Yuqing Lu Yang Source: China Youth Daily