The second battlefield of the
most beautiful
veteran veteran
Although he is already the "Vice President of the Group Company", Wang Min, a retired soldier, is still dressed as a peasant.
He often rushed around the fields in his work clothes, full of the "local dialects" in the village, and sat cross-legged on the ridge while chatting with fellow villagers.
Farmland is the "second battlefield" for retired veteran Wang Min.
Through planting, experimenting, exploring new agricultural technologies, and then promoting them, this "soil expert" has been the theme of his work year after year.
At first, Wang Min wanted to escape from the countryside.
Wang Min, who grew up in the countryside, was used to farm work, and felt that his identity as a farmer was "not decent enough."
After graduating from high school, he signed up to join the army, thinking "the farther away from home, the better."
Unexpectedly, he retired after 5 years and was assigned to the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province, as an agricultural technician, and returned to the countryside again.
Wang Min inevitably felt disappointed, "like working hard for a lap, but still staying in place."
When he first returned to the countryside, the living conditions were difficult. He followed the old technicians on bicycles to field trips. If he was lucky enough to encounter a tractor passing by, they would be able to take a ride.
Also in the field, Wang Min saw the masters being treated warmly by the farmers.
The new tools they brought helped the villagers save costs and increase production. The villagers invited them to sit at home and killed a chicken to entertain them.
This good feeling of being "needed by the masses" attracted Wang Min. After studying communications in the army for five years, he began to switch careers and learn agricultural technology from scratch.
At that time, Wang Min couldn't tell the difference between the planter and the harvester, so he humbly asked his master for advice. His colleagues and farmers also became the targets of his "harassment".
Kang Ruijun, an engineer at the No. 1 Agricultural Mechanization Technology Extension Station in Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province, is one of them. Wang Min has come to ask him about the electrical knowledge and mechanical drawings related to agricultural machinery. In his opinion, Wang Min must be strong and pursue perfection. "There is a force of soldiers not to admit defeat."
"Researching technology is actually like fighting against the top of a mountain." Wang Min explained, "If you want to accomplish something, there is no reason to step back."
In 2012, Wang Min served as the head of the No. 1 Agricultural Mechanization Technology Extension Station in Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province, which ushered in even greater challenges.
Considering that he was not from a "professional background" and did not systematically learn agricultural technology knowledge, Wang Min specially enrolled in the training class of Anhui Agricultural University, and entered the school again at the age of 40 to start learning agricultural technology.
"It is not easy to convince the folks that what you said is right." Wang Min, who has returned from his studies, developed 6 experimental plots in his jurisdiction, divided into different regions, planting habits, and planting systems, and introduced new technologies into the fields first.
During the planting period, he invited local farmers to observe the whole process, and then held an on-site meeting to "settle the accounts" for everyone.
Wang Min knows exactly how much input and output are and how much income can be increased.
In 2014, Wang Min used this model to explore the technology of returning all straw to the field.
At that time, there was still a habit of burning straw in the countryside, which caused serious pollution to the environment.
After visiting and investigating, Wang Min found that farmers burned straw not only to save trouble, but more importantly, to empty the straw residues in the cropland for planting in the coming year.
Traditional agricultural machinery and farming methods can no longer solve this problem. The planting mode and planting habits must be combined to change and form a new planting system.
After repeated trials, Wang Min proposed to widen the planting row spacing between wheat, corn, soybeans and other crops to avoid congestion caused by the concentration of straw residues.
At the same time, according to the new row spacing, Wang Min upgraded his farm tools and replaced them with a new set of farming operations.
Solving the technical difficulties, Wang Min began to promote his new model from village to village.
He spent two years visiting more than 260 villages in his jurisdiction and held more than 200 on-site meetings to explain in detail the new farming methods for farmers.
At most, there are seven or eight meetings a day.
The two pickup trucks are his "chariots", which are equipped with directions signs for the venue and display agricultural tools for the villagers.
At that time, Wang Min and his colleagues joked that they walked from village to village like a "mobile agricultural classroom."
After the classroom is moved, the "teaching materials" will be left behind.
Wang Min led his colleagues to scribble the CD, make the working principle into an animation, and send it wherever he goes, to ensure that "the elderly and children can understand."
Also in the past two years, Wang Min replaced all the farm tools in each village, including soybean planters, corn planters, and high-horsepower tractors.
This made him feel like he was "preparing for war", "in two years your army equipment must be renewed, and the next step is to improve combat effectiveness."
Wang Min praised "let professional people do professional things".
In his view, to "improve combat effectiveness" in the countryside is to make farmers professional.
He vigorously promoted the training of talents and technology, and implemented the system of households in the villages, so that farmers with strong abilities and willingness to learn can be trained first, and then passed on to other people in the village.
Nearly 2,000 "seed contestants" were selected, and Wang Min took everyone to work in the experimental field, explaining new agricultural technologies hand in hand.
Wang Min also mobilized all villages to set up agricultural technology cooperatives, urging everyone to "join together and work together."
Today, there are more than 200 cooperatives in the jurisdiction, and some have even formed large-scale industries, implementing cross-regional operations to help other villages harvest crops, and the farthest has spread to Shandong Province.
In addition to professors promoting agricultural technology, Wang Min is also a consultant for many agricultural machinery manufacturers.
Every time a new agricultural machinery is tested and applied, he will give feedback to the manufacturer based on the actual use effect, put forward what he thinks is lacking, and work with the manufacturer to improve it.
Whether the steel frame structure of a soybean planter should be triangular or I-shaped, Wang Min will repeatedly test and demonstrate.
He found that some agricultural machinery had different farming effects in farmland with different soil qualities, so he invited farmer representatives and manufacturer developers to discuss together and select the most suitable equipment for local use.
Wang Min has a working principle, that is, "Always walk in front of the farmers."
"If you don't advance or study, you will fall behind, and you will fall behind in front of the farmers, and everyone will not trust you." Wang said sensitively.
He has suffered from "falling somersault".
When he first became the stationmaster in 2012, at a spring corn precision planting meeting, a fellow asked Wang Min how to plant sweet corn.
Wang Min thought that all corn was planted the same. After receiving the sweet corn seeds confidently, he discovered that the seed shape of sweet corn was deflated and small, and it was not the same variety as ordinary corn, and the conventional sowing mode could not be applied.
Wang Min was blinded on the spot, and had to tell the fellow "look back and look for opportunities to discuss again."
After that meeting, he went to supplement the sweet corn harvest knowledge.
Before each on-site meeting thereafter, Wang Min had to prepare for many days, lay out an outline of the questions that might be asked, and prepared them one by one in advance.
This year, with the expansion of farmers' sweet potato planting in the area under his jurisdiction, Wang Min again studied sweet potato harvesting.
He found that in the past, most of the seeds were harvested manually, which was time-consuming and laborious and the quality could not be guaranteed, so he thought about replacing it with a machine operation and explored a system model from seeding to harvesting.
In the experimental field, he invited all the growers in the village to convene an on-site meeting to summarize the problems in sweet potato farming.
Later, the research and development institutions and manufacturers of sweet potato planters were also invited to discuss equipment improvements with farmers.
"Don't be afraid of trouble. To promote agricultural technology is to always move forward. You have to think more for the farmers and take one step more." Wang Min said.
Yongqiao District is long and narrow from east to west, and the terrain is complex, with hills, plains, and sandy areas.
Every time he formulates a production model, Wang Min has to sort out several sets of plans.
Wang Min will carefully regulate what farm tools are used for farming, how wide the planting row spacing is, and how high the farm tools must be raised.
Local farmers all know that the plan he made is extremely applicable, "As long as you are willing, you can follow the plan."
He strives for excellence in his work, but Wang Min is "extremely rough" in his life.
He seldom paid attention to his personal image. He always put the work clothes on his body at will. One day, he walked down from the field, and his body was covered with mud spots.
When he retired from the military in 1995, Wang Min also "exactly". He wore a white shirt to work, but later found out that he was out of tune with the fellow, and he has never worn it since.
In 1998, he was about to get married. He bought a suit on purpose, which was later crushed under the box.
It was not until the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs awarded him the title of "National Top Ten Agricultural Technology Promotion Model" in 2019, and when he came to Beijing to receive the commendation, Wang Min turned it out again and found that the sewing thread in his pocket had not been taken apart.
He still prefers the fields and feels that "suits are not used to wearing suits, and the clothes become dirty."
When the harvest season was the busiest, Wang Min "bubble" in the experimental field base and did not go home for several months.
In order to grab wheat in 2019, he drove the combine harvester for nearly 5 hours one after another.
The temperature in the cab was as high as 40 degrees Celsius. When it came down, Wang Min, who was somewhat collapsed, fell directly from the harvester, which was more than 2 meters high, causing fractures of the bony processes of four vertebrae.
Kang Ruijun experienced this scene firsthand. He and his colleagues were terrified and immediately sent Wang Min to the hospital. However, Wang Min took only a few plasters and rode back to the experimental field.
A few days later, under the persuasion of a colleague, Wang Min was hospitalized "as a last resort".
After lying on the hospital bed for a few days, he insisted on being discharged and returned to the test base.
"I didn't finish my work, I was worried!" For more than a month, Wang Min was busy in the fields wearing a waistcoat.
The experiment was successfully completed, but the root cause of his illness has since dropped. Later, when the weather changes, he will suffer from backache, which is "more accurate than the weather forecast."
But Wang Min did not regret it.
In his view, giving a little effort to the farmers is "worth it."
He easily mingle with the folks and enjoy the "feeling of being with farmers."
Nowadays, every time at the on-site meeting, if Wang Min fails, people will start to ask around, "Why didn't the old Wang come today?"
Although he has now given up his career status to work in the company, Wang Min is still in charge of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" services.
He took the lead in building 1,000 acres of experimental fields, "can't leave the farmers' affairs behind."
In an interview, Wang Min mentioned more than once that many honors were “ashamed”.
He always felt that "the honor from the peasant belongs to the peasant."
He told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily, "You should go to interview farmers. My business is not worth mentioning. They are the people we really care about."
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Zheng Tianran, correspondent Qian Jin Source: China Youth Daily