On the mountain south of Hugou village, Huanghua Town, Shandong Province, the hazelnut forest of 667 hectares dyed the gully green. Hazelnut trees were rooted in the stone seam, and a man was tall and horizontal, like a guard guard of the barren mountain. When you go into the gully, you can feel hard stones at your feet. And it was on such a barren mountain that money trees were planted.

The first hazelnut milk in the world has been developed, with the largest hazelnut base in Asia and 15 patent technologies for hazelnut industrialization; The six industry group standards drafted fill in the gap of production management in hazelnut industry in China; He won the fourth "outstanding contribution award of China forestry industry", and hosted the Fifth China (Zhucheng) hazelnut science and technology and industry development seminar and Shandong hazelnut industry field observation Conference... Behind the achievement, it is inseparable from the owner of this hazelnut forest.

667 hectares hazelnut demonstration base

His name is Wei Benxin and he is 65 years old this year. When I saw him, I saw that his face was tanned and red, and he walked more vigorously than the young man. Between this barren hill and thin land, he has been running for many years: cleaning up rubbish rocks, reclaiming bald ridges, circulating land, digging reservoirs, recruiting labor, planting hazel seedlings, harvesting hazelnuts... His passion for the rich peasants is still burning. .
In 2013, Wei Benxin, who had retired from the position of chairman of Hua Hin Casting Co., Ltd., could have been able to live forever and enjoy life, but every time he went back to his hometown, he looked at the barren hills in the village and the old folks who were still living in poverty. I decided to return home to grow hazelnuts and lead the villagers to get rich together...
New Year's Eve Sixtieth and Hazelnuts

Wei Benxin successively founded Shandong Huashan Agriculture and Forestry Technology Co., Ltd. and Shandong Sanyang Zhenyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Huashan Company is engaged in hazelnut cultivation and Sanyang Zhenyuan Company is engaged in hazelnut processing, production and marketing. He spent 6 years planting 1334 hectares of hazelnuts on barren hills, developed and produced hazelnut milk, hazelnut oil and other series of products, created the "Wei Zhen" brand, and created a comprehensive integration of the first, second and third industries in the hazel industry. Industry chain. "Wei Zhen" has become a famous brand in my country's hazelnut industry.

Hazelnut pictures   Photo by Wu Qingzhi

Hazelnut, also known as shanchestnut, Jianli or chuizi, has the reputation of "king of nuts". Modern scientific research reports show that hazelnut kernel is rich in fat, especially monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which has better health care effect.

Wei Benxin has been engaged in agriculture, commerce and industry for 40 years. In 1999, Wei Benxin established Huaxin Foundry Co., Ltd. before the global economic crisis in 2008, the company's annual main business income exceeded 1 billion yuan for many years. Over the past 20 years, the company has paid more than 300 million yuan of national taxes, and is one of the top 100 comprehensive enterprises in the foundry industry in China.

Wuqingzhi, a barren mountain to be exploited

In recent years, due to poor infrastructure, infertile land, insufficient investment and brain drain in the southern mountainous area of Zhucheng City, coupled with three consecutive years of severe drought, food prices have been unstable, resulting in a lot of drought, thin, ditches, and slopes being deserted and weeds. There are bushes, a little green in summer, wild in winter, dusty and desolate.

Whenever he sees folks who are on the verge of returning to poverty due to old age and illness, Wei Benxin often feels ashamed. How to do? Give money to help the poor, but don't help the poor. Shouldn't the elders in the hometown always wear the hat of poverty? He was unwilling.

Wei Benxin is the son of a farmer. Therefore, he has a soft spot for agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Taking advantage of the opportunity to study abroad and at home, he found that the hazelnut industry in Jilin, Tieling, Benxi, Liaoyang, and Anqiu City in this province is important for increasing farmers’ incomes, improving people’s livelihood and ecological environment, as well as regional coordinated development, and maintaining national food and oil security. The industry already has the basic conditions for vigorous development. He believes that this is a new way to get rid of poverty in mountainous areas, which can not only transform and utilize barren mountains, but also drive farmers to increase their incomes and become rich.

Hazelnuts have been cultivated in the United States, Italy, Canada, Turkey and other countries for more than 100 years. Due to the influence of traditional concepts, only a small amount of hazelnuts are grown in Northeast China, and most of them are wild hazelnuts of low quality and quantity. Can planting in Shandong survive? Can it result? Who will sell the fruit to? What is the economic benefit per hectares? What if the farmers do not approve? There were a lot of problems, Wei Benxin did not hesitate or flinched, and tried to solve them one by one.

Growing hazelnuts has twists and turns

In order to understand the planting of hazelnuts, Wei Benxin went to the Northeast for a week of inspection. He also went to the Chinese Academy of Forestry to ask experts about the feasibility of hazelnut planting and related technologies, which was recognized by the experts. Good seedlings can guarantee an increase in production. After screening, Wei decided to plant Ping-Europe hybrid hazelnuts. "This kind of hazelnut uses European filbert as the male parent, and the flat hazel as the female parent. It was successfully bred through distant hybridization." Wei Benxin started to develop the hazelnut industry according to local conditions.
On the east side of Changshan, 5 kilometers northwest of the 667 hectares hazelnut orchard, the 20 hectares Pingou hazelnut planted by Wei Benxin 7 years ago has now entered the fruiting period. Years of accumulation of planting experience gave Lao Wei the confidence: 3 years old hazelnuts, each yielding about one catty of dried fruit, and 110 plants per acre of land, can earn more than 2,000 yuan at the current price of 20 yuan per catty. Interplanting peanuts and soybeans in the first two years can guarantee labor costs. The third year will be flat and the fourth year will be profitable.

The old Wei is explaining the cultivation technology of hazelnut

"The hazelnut tree I planted in Changshan entered the fruiting period in 4 years, with a yield of more than 500 jin per hectares. This is an income of 10,000 yuan, which is equivalent to the income of 0.67 hectares of grain." Lao Wei used a word to encourage farmers. Planting hazelnuts: “Ten trees for subsistence allowances, one hundred trees for the aged, one thousand trees to make a home, and ten thousand trees to enrich the people.” Then, backed by the strength of the enterprise, he invested 6 million yuan in an initial investment and planted and introduced them on 17 hectares of mountains in Nanling, Hugou Village. Hazelnut saplings born in the first and second years of the year will be driven by a demonstration.
But soon after the seedlings were planted, the saplings were dying due to severe drought. Wei Benxin took the lead regardless of day and night, mobilizing more than a dozen large and small vehicles for three consecutive months, pulling water from the town to fight drought and protect seedlings. For more than two months, I went out early and returned late at night. I ran deep and shallow on the ridge. I got mouth sores and paronychia on my toes. I limped when I walked and my skin was tanned.
The sky pays off. When the hazelnut trees all over the mountains spit out buds and spread their leaves, most of the hazelnut seedlings survived, Wei Benxin felt at ease. In order to completely change the problem of water use in the mountains and the irrigated land of surrounding villagers, Wei Benxin invested more than 6 million yuan to build two reservoirs in Huangdiangou and Donggou of Hugou Village in the park. At this time all his savings have been spent.
In order to irrigate, pick, transport and travel for villagers, Lao Wei relied on his many years of business credit to invest more than 4 million yuan and purchase 6 large-scale water pumps. According to the trend of the mountains, he erected more than 2,000 meters of watering main pipelines and branch pipelines. More than 3,000 meters, more than 100,000 meters of micro-spraying pipes were installed on the water diversion mountain; with the support of the Zhucheng Party Committee and government, more than 1 million yuan was invested to build 18 kilometers of roads running through the rural park.
When the local people saw that Wei Benxin, an outsider, dared to throw blood on his one-third of acre of land, it was real, and their worries were slowly dispelled. Wei Benxin struck the iron while it was hot and transferred 334 hectares of land in Hugou, Shangkangling, Xiakangling, Dashan, Xiaoshan and other villages, invested 15.35 million yuan, employed more than 20 excavators, worked hard for more than 5 months, and abandoned seven or eight of them that had been abandoned for many years. Barren hills and bald ridges, comprehensive land management, layer by layer surrounding mountains and ridges, such as Dazhai terraces, and laying drip irrigation water-saving facilities, will build Shandong Huashan 667 hectares Pingou Hazelnut Demonstration Base. This project has an annual net income of 8,000-10,000 yuan per hectares, and an output value of 80 million yuan for the entire industry chain. The ecological, economic and social benefits are significant.
In 2014, Wei Benxin resolutely put out 15 million yuan to register and set up Shandong Huashan Agriculture and Forestry Technology Co., Ltd., and develop in the direction of "high-quality hazel seedling breeding and base demonstration planting". By 2019, Wei Benxin has reclaimed 1400 hectares of barren hills, built 13 storage ponds and dams, built more than 50 kilometers of roads up the mountain, planted more than 2 million hazelnut trees, and became a well-known "hazelnut master".
How can the hazelnut tree grow bigger? Wei Benxin was upset: "Everyone knows that the price of hazelnuts is high, but the hazelnut tree only takes 3 years to bear fruit, and only takes 5 years to pay back. The cycle is long and the return is slow." Just call the brand name.
Create the largest hazelnut brand in China

"When I went abroad, I saw some hazelnut-made foods in Italy and the United States, such as cakes, chocolates, biscuits, etc., and thought they tasted good. In some high-end communities in the United States, hazelnut trees are street trees. They are a hundred years old, five or six meters high. Walking under the tree, squirrels eat hazelnuts on the tree, and people live in harmony with nature. But at that time, our country was relatively small and was not an industry." Wei Benxin felt that he had found a new blank area in the market.
"Science and technology innovation" is Wei Benxin's "keyword" for the development of modern agriculture. With the expansion of the hazelnut planting scale, Lao Wei began to think about the big hazelnut industry chain and increase the added value. Old Wei has been infiltrated in the industrial front for many years, and cooperation between industry, university and research is one of his experiences. He brought "industrial thinking" to the agricultural field.
In July 2017, Wei Benxin established a biotechnology company specializing in the deep processing of hazelnuts, registered trademarks such as "Wei Zhen" and "Huashan Lao Wei", and hired Gao Yanxiang, a professor from the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, as a consultant, and invested more than 9,000 10,000 yuan, an intelligent, fully enclosed hazelnut deep processing workshop covering an area of 15,000 square meters has been built.

Hazelnut product exhibition by wuqingzhi

The machine work awakens the wasteland that has been sleeping for many years, and the productivity is reactivated. Hazelnut saplings are planted layer by layer around the mountains, and drip irrigation water-saving facilities are laid on the bottom of the trees. The 667 hectares Pingou Hazelnut Demonstration Base in Shandong Huashan has been completed. "My heart is slowly rising like a hazelnut tree." Seeing the clusters of fruits weighing heavily on the branches, Old Wei's joy was beyond words.
Regarding hazelnuts, he has his own further thoughts: "The roasted hazelnuts on the market are very low-end. If you sell hazelnuts alone, it costs 20 yuan per catty, hazelnut powder 40-50 yuan per catty, and hazelnut oil 120 yuan per catty. After husking, sorting, grinding, and squeezing oil, the profits of hazelnuts can be doubled after deep processing, and the market is in short supply.” In Lao Wei’s vision, planting hazelnuts is only the first step. "What I want to do is the hazelnut industry. Hazelnut kernels, hazelnut slices, hazelnut crushed, hazelnut powder, as well as hazelnut oil, hazelnut milk, hazelnut snack foods, deep processing of hazelnuts, so that the value of hazelnuts will double."
Lao Wei’s hazelnut industry chain has been closed, forming a fusion model of "seedling breeding + hazelnut acquisition + deep processing R&D + warehousing logistics + online and offline sales". A small hazelnut connects the city and the country. Connecting primary, secondary and tertiary industries, through coordinated development, has brought benefits to farmers, processing companies, and consumers.
Wei Benxin printed his profile picture on the business card and the packaging of the hazelnut products. In his words, "I use my personality to guarantee that our hazelnuts are green and delicious."
Hazelnut industry drives villagers to get rich

Lao Wei welcomed the development requirements of industrial prosperity in the rural revitalization strategy. "We are here to transfer land, improve infrastructure such as water circuits, introduce new varieties of hazelnuts, develop large-scale and standardized planting, build processing plants, farmhouses and leisure and health care bases, which not only protects the green waters and green mountains, but also enriches the villagers and elders. Every time I think of this, I am very motivated." Old Wei said with satisfaction.
In Wei Benxin's view, holding a sickle to harvest crops, facing the loess and back to the sky, is an unsustainable traditional agriculture. He wants to make hazelnuts into a big industry to drive farmers to get rich. To this end, he initiated the establishment of a professional hazelnut planting cooperative, named "Gonghao", which entrusted him with his hope that the villagers would "share good" with him.
“There are groups of 5 households in the cooperative, and each group manages 2 hectares of hazelnut orchard together, leaving the cost to the cooperative and the income to the individual.” Wei Benxin plans to use 3 years to drive the surrounding 3,000 farmers to plant Hazelnuts, reaching 20,000. The planting scale of acres.
Cooperated with Professor Wang Guixi, director and chief expert of the Economic Forest Research Office of the Forestry Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and the chairman of the Hazelnut Working Committee of the Chinese Economic Forest Association, to introduce and domesticate 2 million Pingou hazelnut nurseries suitable for Shandong's climatic characteristics. For the farmers who transfer their land, they are arranged to be workers in the park, with an annual salary of more than 30,000 yuan per person. This alone will bring about 6 million yuan in income to the surrounding villagers. More than 500 laborers with no skills, no special skills, and family difficulties were also resettled, with a direct benefit of 10 million yuan, which greatly improved the material life of the people in the mountainous areas.
He also established a long-term poverty alleviation mechanism with industrial development as the core content, mobilized villagers’ land transfer, attracted social capital, integrated village land resources and ponds and rivers, built agricultural parks, enabled villagers’ land to scale up, and realized land appreciation and efficiency. , To achieve a steady increase in farmers' income. Actively cooperate with the local party committee and government to implement a dynamic management system for poverty alleviation to promote stable poverty alleviation.
After dealing with Hazel for several years, Wei gradually became an expert. Improving the technological level of China's hazelnut industry, standardizing and perfecting the weak links of the industrial chain, opening up the entire industrial chain of the hazelnut industry, and promoting the healthy, healthy and long-term development of China's hazelnut industry have become his next goal.
At present, Sanyang Zhenyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd. has an annual production capacity of 65,000 tons of hazelnut vegetable protein drinks, 400 tons of high-grade hazelnut dietary oil, and 2,800 tons of hazelnut snack foods. So far, a closed-loop industrial chain integrating Pingou Hazelnut seedling breeding, planting, technology promotion, intensive processing, warehousing, and sales.
"Wei Benxin has done a great job!" Wang Guixi said, "As a private entrepreneur, Wei Benxin has the courage and foresight, and he focuses on using technology to lead the development of the hazelnut industry. The new intelligent hazelnut production workshop is both in terms of hardware and software. , All have reached the domestic first-class standards."
Nowadays, 666.7 hectares of hazelnut forest has entered a high-yield period. This woody oil-bearing forest has become a genuine "green bank" with obvious ecological and economic benefits. Wei Benxin's years of hard work have also been recognized by everyone. At the representative meeting of the Hazelnut Branch of the Shandong Economic Forest Association held on January 11 this year, more than 150 people from the economic forest (fruit tree) stations of the provinces and cities, representatives of the association members and relevant scientific research units participated. Wei Benxin, who strives to be the leader and promoter of China's hazelnut industry, was elected as the second council chairman of the hazelnut branch of the Shandong Economic Forest Association.
"My goal is to be an industrial enterprise and commodity circulation. Based on the hazelnut industry, taking mountain tourism as the direction, through the integration of the industrial chain, promoting the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, creating a rural complex, so that the villagers can benefit and better. "Wei Benxin said.

Audit report     Duckweed

Editor Wang Jiangjiang

The above article is reprinted from the supplement of China green times

Company profile

All staff of Shandong Sanyang Zhenyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd. sincerely welcome the guidance and win-win cooperation of the alliance members, and jointly make suggestions for the development of China's hazelnut industry, so as to realize "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains". Build the whole hazelnut industry chain in China, and strive to provide green, healthy, nutritious and reassuring hazelnut products for Chinese people.

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