Retired soldier raises geese, helping lift 67 households out of poverty

Yang Wen, 60, a former soldier, opened a garment factory in 1993. Unfortunately, just when his factory was recording an output of more than 20 million yuan ($3.12 million), an earthquake ruined it on May 12, 2008.

In August 2015, Yang found a reservoir suitable to raise geese at the Zhangcun village, Leishan county, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Guizhou province.

He bought first goslings in 2016 and fed them wild grass collected from nearby mountains or corns bought from villagers. By the end of 2016, he had recouped 1.06 million yuan that he invested in this goose-raising project.

Since the second half of 2016, Yang begun to sell goslings which did not need to live in farms with heating conditions. In addition, by December last year, he had given almost 40,000 such goslings, worth 80,000 yuan, to 67 poor families for free. These families earned from 8,000 yuan to 80,000 yuan.

Over 1,530 villagers were trained by Yang's expertise team. Yang also hired 12 villagers who used to live under extreme poverty to work on his farm.