Jiang Chang China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang
Zhai Ruining (right) guides farmers to try out new varieties of corn. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Not long ago, Zhai Ruining won the honorary title of "The Second National Rural Revitalization Youth Pioneer" awarded by the Communist Youth League Central Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. In the view of this 35-year-old young man from Shanxi, Guangxi has many development opportunities. "Scientific and technological innovation is the key to agricultural development, and young people have great potential in joining it."
In February 2017, less than a year after graduating from Guangxi University College of Agriculture majoring in crop genetics and breeding, Zhai Ruining, who had just started working, followed the poverty alleviation team to Anyang Village, Baoan Township, Du'an Yao Autonomous County. The car turned on the winding mountain road. The walking back and forth made him, a Shanxi native from the Loess Plateau, a little uncomfortable. The muddy road was full of potholes and the car bumped and vibrated, just like Zhai Ruining's mood was no longer calm.
His mission is to change the situation of poor quality and low yield of corn here. He calls himself a "second generation farmer" - his uncles and aunts are all agricultural researchers studying corn. Influenced by them since childhood, Zhai Ruining studied agronomy from undergraduate to graduate school. After graduation, he came to work at the Corn Research Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The poverty of the villagers is connected with the barren land. After many investigations and visits, Zhai Ruining sighed secretly. The local corn is difficult to drill out from the cracks in the rocks. The corn grown in such soil conditions is basically of different sizes and not strong enough. Farmers can only use it as their own food or to feed cattle and sheep. The market value is not tall.
After some screening and thinking, Zhai Ruining decided to promote some barren and drought-tolerant corn varieties bred by the Corn Research Institute here that do not have high requirements for soil fertility.
Just when Zhai Ruining was getting ready to do something big, he encountered the first difficulty.
Although the villagers were hospitable to guests, they did not trust such a fair-skinned young "expert" and politely refused the corn seeds he recommended.
There was no other way, so Zhai Ruining had no choice but to speak with facts. He contacted the village director and first secretary, and first used a few acres of land to conduct some small-scale variety demonstrations, using their local corn seeds to conduct comparative experiments with the "Gui" brand corn Guidan 0810.
When the corn matured in autumn, Zhai Ruining invited experts to the experimental field to test the yield and accept it, and also contacted local TV stations to report on it. Seeing the larger ears of Guidan 0810 corn, the villagers were convinced and began to accept this new variety.
During the promotion of new varieties, Zhai Ruining went to the villagers' fields from time to time to check the condition of the corn and delivered fertilizers and pesticides to the villagers. When he is not in the village, villagers will take photos and send them to Zhai Ruining via WeChat, asking him for advice on pest control and other issues. After getting to know the villagers, they gave him a nickname: "Tian Xiucai."
In order to improve the economic benefits of local corn cultivation, Zhai Ruining asked farmers to grow fresh corn. The temperature difference between day and night is large here, which is more conducive to the accumulation of sugar in fresh corn.
In the autumn of the second year, although the fresh corn harvest was good, Zhai Ruining encountered a second difficulty.
At that time, the local fresh corn market situation was not optimistic, the transportation was far away, and there was no market. Fresh corn is different from ordinary corn. It has no commercial value after being stored for too long.
If good corn cannot be sold, the villagers will be worried. Zhai Ruining looked at the sad faces of the villagers and felt unhappy. He immediately contacted the pickup truck and went down to the village from Nanning to pull corn, and then returned to Nanning to help the villagers sell it. In order to speed up shipments, he also contacted some fraternal units, other scientific research institutes and some hospitals to jointly purchase poverty alleviation products.
was busy until 11 o'clock that night, when most of the goods were finally shipped. But the land in Anyang Village is indeed barren, and there are still some inferior corn left in the car. Zhai Ruining discussed with several colleagues and bought all the remaining corn with his own money.
Zhai Ruining learned a lesson. Although fresh corn is good, it has a short shelf life, high transportation costs, and is greatly affected by market fluctuations. Still not suitable for local cultivation. He then decided to adapt measures to local conditions and expand the promotion of Guidan 0810 and Guidan 162, known as "lazy corn" that are suitable for local production conditions.
This kind of corn is easy to grow, has strong disease resistance and high yield. It can be harvested as grain and processed as silage. As feed for cattle and sheep, corn stalks and corn leaves are fully utilized.
After the promotion of "lazy corn", the villagers' annual income increased from 20,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. After working in the past few years, Zhai Ruining's image has changed from the fair-skinned young scholar to a dark, middle-aged farmer.
The promotion of corn from the Corn Research Institute also has greater significance regarding national food security.
’s 2014 survey results showed that corn varieties from abroad accounted for 80% of Guangxi’s market share, occupying a monopoly position. This will not only affect the economic interests of China's grain practitioners, but also put our country's national security at the mercy of others. After the corn from the Corn Research Institute of the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences was promoted, the "Gui" series corn currently accounts for more than 65% of the market share.
While Zhai Ruining was busy alleviating poverty in Du'an, he was also working on developing new corn varieties in Hengzhou City.
Zhai Ruining conducts breeding experiments in the laboratory. Photo provided by interviewee
He concluded that Duan’s corn cannot be sold, not because the corn is not good, but because the corn is not competitive in the market and is not unique enough. He and his team decided to research corn varieties that were not on the market.
"If the selected corn varieties cannot enter the market, it means that the scientific research work has not produced social benefits. The varieties must have new highlights and generate market value to truly help farmers." Zhai Ruining said.
To this end, he and his team jointly cultivated 48 new corn varieties in 8 years, of which 2 passed national review and the rest passed regional review. He was the first person to breed 4 new varieties. More and more specialty corn varieties are appearing on the market, including sweet corn, waxy corn, sweet waxy corn, black sweet waxy corn rich in anthocyanins... 9 of these approved corn varieties are also purchased by companies. Achieved results conversion of more than 4 million yuan.
During this period, Zhai Ruining encountered his third difficulty.
In 2021, a company approached Zhai Ruining, hoping to help it solve some pain points in corn production. When fresh corn is on the market, corn from all over the country rushes to the market, and competition is fierce. After it is released, the supply exceeds demand. Secondly, the utilization rate of the whole corn plant is low. Except for the ears, most of the remaining parts are wasted.
Zhai Ruining and his colleagues were inspired by the vacuum-packaged food in the market, guided the company to establish a vacuum packaging production line, and invited production and processing experts to enter the company's workshop to optimize the operation process. Since then, corn has had a longer shelf life through vacuum packaging and has been exported to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Sichuan, Chongqing and other places.
In order to improve the utilization rate of the whole corn plant, Zhai Ruining and his colleagues supported the company to develop corn juice deep processing technology and produce bottled corn juice drinks. They used the fresh corn bracts, corn shoots, corn silk, and corn stalks to achieve almost the whole corn plant. 100% utilization.
The establishment of a production line for vacuum packaging corn and corn juice will allow the company's annual gross production value to exceed 129 million yuan in 2022.
As the first party branch secretary of the Corn Research Institute of the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhai Ruining has established 9 agricultural science and technology demonstration bases with colleagues from the Corn Research Institute in the past 8 years, demonstrating 25 new varieties and new technologies, with a demonstration area of 200,000 acres, and donated more than 30,000 kilograms of improved corn seeds and 1,000 tons of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to farmers, adding nearly 9 million yuan in income to farmers. He has won the second prize of the Guangxi Science and Technology Progress Award in 2022, the first prize of the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences Science and Technology Progress Award in 2022, and other honors.
Source: China Youth Daily client
