The entrepreneurial legend of a mountainous family and the path of era transition
In the folds of the Yungui River, there is a land shrouded in clouds and mist. The terraced fields there are layered, like fingerprints of the earth, recording the stories of generations of cultivators. Kim's grandparents and parents are the most ordinary yet extraordinary cultivators on this land. From farmers who cultivate the land on the ridge to entrepreneurs who establish export agricultural product companies, they have written a touching chapter about perseverance, breakthrough, inheritance, and innovation over the past forty years.
Development History
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1、 The imprint of life on loess soil
In the early 1970s, Kim's parents formed a family with the help of a matchmaker from a neighboring village. At that time, the transportation in the mountainous areas was blocked, and the villagers relied on their shoulders and backs to exchange goods with the outside world. The working mode of facing the yellow soil and facing the sky continued for hundreds of years. The newlyweds were given two acres of thin farmland and began their farming life in the dawn and dusk. Kim's father is skilled in rice cultivation and has developed the soil method of "fertilizing according to the sky and adjusting water according to the ground"; My mother is good at vegetable cultivation and can always grow ordinary cabbage and radish with water and fullness. Planting in spring and harvesting in autumn, with the ups and downs of winter and summer, the couple used their calloused hands to turn the barren land into a "treasure trove" to support their family of four.
In Kim's childhood memories, parents were always the first to wake up in the village. At four o'clock in the morning, the figure of my mother kneading dough and making cakes under the oil lamp, and the footsteps of my father carrying a bamboo basket out of the house, formed the most profound scene of life. During the busy farming season, the family worked in the fields, and their parents taught Kim hand in hand to identify weeds and seedlings, telling the simple truth of "a grain of rice makes a thousand drops of sweat". This intimate contact with the land not only shaped Kim's resilient character, but also sowed deep emotions towards agriculture in his heart.
2、 The awakening moment in the tide of the times
After 2000 years, with the advancement of the village to village road project, the outside world began to knock on the door of the mountain village. When a vendor drove a tricycle into the village to purchase agricultural products, my father keenly noticed that the same vegetables could be sold at double the price in the county market. This discovery kept him up all night and he began to try small-scale long-distance trafficking. However, the limitations of traditional farming models quickly became apparent: the lack of preservation technology led to severe losses, information asymmetry made sales full of uncertainty, and after a year of hard work, profits were minimal.
My mother saw hope in it. She encouraged her husband, "We've been planting all our lives, why can't we sell the things that grow in the fields at a good price?" In 2017, with Kim's help, the couple began to try e-commerce sales. They used a senior machine to take photos of agricultural products and asked Kim to help post them on social media. The first batch of orders came from customers in neighboring provinces. Although they only had a few dozen pounds of chili peppers, this success showed them the dawn of modern agriculture.
3、 The path of entrepreneurship from cocoon to butterfly
In 2023, with the full support of Kim, the "Beiyou Jiayu" brand was officially established. This decision was not made on impulse, but after six years of preparation: through systematic learning of modern agricultural technology, I obtained a new professional farmer certificate; Lead a team to investigate coastal markets and study consumption preferences in different regions; Kim utilized her knowledge of international trade to build a complete supply chain system.
In the early stages of the company's establishment, the biggest challenge came from standardized production. The mountainous terrain is complex, and the planting methods vary from household to household. To achieve large-scale operation, the couple visited every household and used their years of accumulated planting experience to persuade fellow villagers to join the cooperative. They establish unified standards for seed selection, fertilization, and harvesting, and introduce a cold chain logistics system to ensure stable quality of agricultural products from the field to the port. In the spring of 2024, the first batch of containers loaded with fresh vegetables from mountainous areas successfully arrived in the Southeast Asian market and received high recognition from customers.
4、 From family farms to industrial clusters
Nowadays, the company has developed into an agricultural leading enterprise with a standardized planting base of 1000 acres and driven more than 300 households. The company has not only established a comprehensive operational system, but also developed deep processed products such as freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, instant kimchi, etc. What is even more exciting is that traditional farming wisdom and modern technology have been perfectly integrated here: unmanned aerial vehicles for crop protection improve efficiency, IoT devices monitor soil moisture in real time, and blockchain technology ensures product traceability.
Kim's parents still maintain the habit of waking up early, but now they no longer work directly in the fields, but coordinate production through a smart agriculture management platform. They often say, 'The land does not deceive people, as long as you put in the heart, you can grow good things.' This statement is both an agricultural philosophy and an entrepreneurial creed. Under their influence, more and more young people choose to return to their hometowns and continue writing agricultural stories of the new era with new technologies and concepts.
From farmers digging in the loess soil to trendsetters in the international market, Kim's parents' entrepreneurial journey is not only a family's struggle history, but also a vivid epitome of China's agricultural modernization transformation. They have proven through personal experience that as long as they have dreams and are down-to-earth, traditional agriculture can also be revitalized, and ordinary farmers can create extraordinary business legends. Against the backdrop of rural revitalization, such stories continue to inspire more people to write new chapters in the fields of hope.
