Farmer-turned-entrepreneur sprouts big business from small potatoes

A farmer-turned-entrepreneur from east China’s Shandong Province has made persistent efforts to invest in the potato seed industry over the course of 20 years, turning small potatoes into a big business.

Photo shows Xisen Group’s greenhouses in Shangdu county, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Photo/Li Simin)

Liang Xisen, the entrepreneur, comes from a village in Laoling city, Shandong. Due to his humble financial background, Liang began to take up work as a blacksmith at an early age. He started to undertake construction projects in Beijing in the 1990s and entered China’s real estate industry in 1999.

Liang began his potato business in 2001. One day that year, Liang was in a Western fast-food restaurant with his daughter where she was enjoying French fries. Liang asked a waitress what type of potato was used for the French fries. He was surprised to discover that they were all made from imported potatoes, since the domestic supply of potatoes at the time was not good enough.

Liang then did some research on potatoes and discovered that even though China had the largest planting area in the world, the average yield per mu (about 0.07 hectares) was less than one tonne, which was less than one third of the yield achieved in developed countries, reflecting a lack of high-quality virus-free seed potatoes.

According to Liang, since the breeding of virus-free seed potatoes requires large investments and long growth cycles, many agricultural companies were not willing to invest in the sector.

Liang decided to take the risk. In October 2001, he recruited six graduates from a university to develop virus-free seed potatoes. Unfortunately, their efforts failed and Liang lost over 6 million yuan (about $942,000) in two years.

However, Liang didn’t give up hope. He invited Sun Huisheng, a famous expert on potato seed breeding, to join him.

In 2005, Liang set up Xisen Potato Industry Co. Ltd. and invested about 1 billion yuan to build a hi-tech breeding base in Laoling city and Yanqing district in Beijing, respectively. He also bought superior potato germplasm resources across the world and established a leading germplasm bank of potatoes.

Six years later, Liang’s company successfully developed a new potato variety, dubbed “Xisen 3.” So far, 11 new potato varieties bred by the company have been registered by relevant national authorities, and the quality and yields of these varieties are higher than those of imported ones.

Xisen Group has also exported seeds to several countries along the Belt and Road, including Egypt and Kazakhstan.

In recent years, Liang has promoted a business model that integrates companies, cooperatives, and farmers and allows clients to place orders before production, helping farmers increase their incomes.

In 2020, Liang established a potato breeding base in Lamaban village in Shangdu county, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Liang introduced that the transfer of land-use rights to his company enabled local farmers to increase their average annual income by more than 1,000 yuan.

Liang’s company also rented 484 greenhouses in the village and signed potato breeding contracts with farmers.

“I begin to grow potato seedlings in mid-May and sell potatoes in early September every year,” said villager Fan Meiling, adding that technicians taught her how to plant seedlings. Fan explained that the yield of her potatoes per mu exceeded 4 tonnes this year.

According to Fan, she can earn at least 10,000 yuan from each of her greenhouses. “I used the money earned from selling potatoes to help my son buy an apartment in the county seat,” Fan said proudly.