PhD holder brings wealth to villagers in SW China's Guizhou

Li Shiyao (left) explains strawberry cultivation techniques to a villager in Zhongqing village, Shuangjia subdistrict, Zhongshan district, Liupanshui city, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

At an altitude of about 2,000 meters in Zhongqing village, Shuangjia subdistrict, Zhongshan district, Liupanshui city, southwest China's Guizhou Province, 52 greenhouses spread across a gentle slope carved from karst terrain — a landscape Li Shiyao has spent nine years transforming since earning his doctorate.

In 2017, Li gave up a faculty position at Northwest A&F University in northwest China's Shaanxi Province and returned to his home village instead, a decision that drew skepticism from neighbors and even his own father, who had farmed the village's rocky soil his whole life and had hoped his son's education would take him away from it for good.

But Li, who had studied agricultural water and soil engineering, said he could not bear to see his hometown's land still being farmed in the traditional way. He chose strawberries, a far more profitable crop than the corn and potatoes traditionally grown there, and one well suited to attracting tourists from a nearby scenic lake.

His first harvest, in the spring of 2018, succeeded but could not be scaled up. The village's Party branch stepped in, rallying residents to see his results firsthand and encouraging senior Party members to offer land for trial planting. Zhongshan district later added Li to a local talent registry and set up a direct-support mechanism for his work.

To overcome the region's chronic water shortages, Li designed a gravity-fed irrigation system that channels rainwater and springs downhill without pumps or electricity, paired with Venturi-style fertilizer injectors that deliver nutrients directly to plant roots — cutting the waste associated with manual fertilizing.

He also introduced a smart monitoring system to track greenhouse temperature and humidity, while keeping a camellia bush by the reservoirs as a natural indicator of seasonal conditions.

Overcoming skepticism from older farmers took patience. A technology extension network has since taken shape locally. In Li's greenhouses, dozens to hundreds of varieties have been trialed in rotation, eventually identifying varieties suited to the region's high-altitude, cool climate.

In 2019, Li founded a farming cooperative, exploring a business model that integrates the cooperative, family farms and individual households. It adopts a "three-part income" system: land rental fees, wages for labor and a year-end bonus equal to 25 percent of sales revenue, distributed according to hours worked and recorded publicly.

The cooperative provides high-quality seed varieties, technical guidance and both online and offline sales channels for all its members, sparing farmers the risk of choosing the wrong variety or the worry of finding buyers.

"The purple glutinous corn we grow with local farmers is high in anthocyanins and has a chewy texture — it's a favorite among tourists escaping the summer heat here," Li said.

So far, the cooperative has 13 member households, has provided more than 20,000 paid work opportunities, and has helped raise farmers' incomes by more than 2 million yuan (about $297,603).

Thanks to his contributions, Li was recognized as a national-level outstanding Party member.

Li Shiyao (left) explains strawberry cultivation techniques to a villager in Zhongqing village, Shuangjia subdistrict, Zhongshan district, Liupanshui city, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)