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In recent years, Kouhezi Town, Hure Banner, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has been encouraging the residents of its villages to get involved with the goose farming industry and providing policy support in order to help people increase their incomes and become more prosperous as part of its rural vitalisation strategy. A hardy animal, geese usually do not suffer from severe diseases and can consume many types of feed, though they require a lot of land. The geography and abundant understorey in the area make it suited to the endeavour, and training and guidance and other forms of assistance have been provided. Kouhezi has become one of Hure's main producers of goose meat – 27 goose farming bases existed in it as of May 2022 – and has been driving the development of the industry in the banner.

Wang Wenlong, a resident of the town's Kouhezi Village, was born in 1986 and opened a hardware store in central Kouhezi Town after graduating from middle school. He came into contact with goose farming by chance during his business’s slow season in 2015 and discovered that start-up costs are low and they can be recovered in a relatively short period of time and that the industry has good prospects as there is good demand for goose meat. He invested more than RMB100,000 in the establishment of a goose farm in order to create another income stream for himself and sold 3,000 geese that year.

Wang Wenlong pours feed into a bucket at his goose farm.

In mid-2022, Wang mentioned that he sells goslings for RMB15 each, it takes about 70-100 days for them to mature, and the farm that raises them can generate about RMB40 of profit per animal.

The husbandman originally did not sell his geese online. He started marketing them to potential customers living all over China on Chinese social media platform WeChat in 2017, however, and later started promoting his products on the Kuaishou and TikTok livestreaming platforms as the format became more popular. These efforts have been an important part of Wang's business – his online and offline sales volumes are nearly equal at present. He also built a hatchery that officially came online in January 2022.

A basket of goslings

“We used to buy goslings in Liaoning Province's Anshan City and in Jilin Province,” Wang explained. “They are far away though, and many goslings got dehydrated on the way home. The quality of the breeds that we received was also not guaranteed, and the animals' survival rates tended to be low, so I decided to establish a hatchery in order to address these problems and make it easier for farmers living in my area to buy them.”

One of the more than 40 individual farmers who have been following in his footsteps in Kouhezi Town’s rural areas, Li Qingjiang recently bought 5,000 goslings from Wang, with the latter having provided Li with training and promised to buy the geese when they are ready to be sold.

Demand for goose meat has been increasing in China by the year, which has made it possible for Wang's company to continue to expand. It currently employs 30 of Kouhezi Town's villagers as breeders, animal nutritionists, epidemiologists and geese catchers.

Some adult geese on Wang's farm

Yu Xiuhua, a resident of one of Kouhezi's villages, started raising geese in early 2019 after becoming inspired by Wang and currently has an inventory of over 3,000. Wang has helped her raise them and gives her advice about sales, and she also works part-time at his company hatching goslings.

A brood of goslings

Wang's farm has been developing and expanding ever since it was founded and is currently involved with all aspects of the local goose industry chain, including breeding, incubating, slaughtering, management and sales. It also provides the farmers who purchase its goslings with technical support and purchases them when they are adults. The hatchery can produce 40,000 goslings at a time, or around 2 million a year, and about 100,000 mature geese are produced at the site and sold for meat per year. Wang also plans to build a factory capable of producing vacuum-sealed products such as goose feet, livers and braised geese.

Factors such as policy support, guidance and training, compatible geography, and e-commerce have been key to the success of Wang's business and Kouhezi Town's goose farming industry. It is also very important that sufficient amounts of land are available and that farmers have enough time available to tend to the animals. Wang's story may be useful for people and administrative areas that wish to pursue goose farming in order to become more prosperous.

Source: http://grassland.china.com.cn/2022-05/10/content_41989918.html?f=pad&a=true

For more information, please contact WFP China COE (wfpcn.coe@wfp.org)