'Golden fingers' cultivates his career

"One thing I learned during the years at Monsanto is to be creative. The company has a great culture for encouraging people to develop their creativity. I had plenty of good ideas at Monsanto and I managed to make some of them possible," Liu says.

"The supply chain and the distribution channels - it may have seemed too fantastical to realize them at the time, but I believe there is always a way, and I succeeded," he adds.

In its heyday, Monsanto's cottonseeds had 95 percent of China's market share. At the same time, the US-based company was going through a deep restructuring of its business.

'Idealist'

Instead of laying low and waiting for the winds of change to blow over, the urge for adventure once again drove him forward. This time, he told himself, he wanted something more serious and "real". In 2001, Liu joined Pioneer Hi-Bred.

"Liu Shi calls himself an 'idealist', but he has a practical side. He knows how to carry out his plans step by step - with extraordinary thoroughness," says Hardeep Grewal, who was Liu's supervisor at Pioneer.

Liu says: "Pioneer has a different corporate culture from Monsanto. It has a clear market positioning for its products and a profound understanding of the seed industry."

Liu's first big moment after joining Pioneer was to promote the so-called "single-seed planting technique." Traditionally, farmers in China put half a dozen corn seeds in each drill hole to ensure at least one of them sprouts. What Liu wanted to promote was the technology that enables farmers to sow a single seed in each hole, with a successful germination rate of more than 95 percent.

This single-seed planting technology can save farmers' seeds and the time and effort required to remove competing seedlings from the same hole, a labor-intensive task which is usually performed under the scorching summer sun.

"I borrowed many ideas from the mass consumption industry. You have to think about the consumers'/end-users' problems and needs. And you have to provide them with a solution and service rather than a product," Liu says.

The single-seed planting technique was only part of his famous business model. To further free the farmers from back-breaking field labor, Liu decided to promote mechanized seed drills.

Unlike other countries with an advanced agricultural sector, Chinese farmers are mostly smallholding peasants. In China, on average, farmers have less than one hectare. As such, it does not make economic sense to employ the large machines used in other countries.

Liu was once again driven forward by his perseverance. "I believe anything is possible, so long as I set my mind to do it," he says.

At that time, single-seed planting was still a novelty for Chinese agricultural machinery companies. It took Liu one year to go through the country's agricultural machinery companies one by one and finally find one that could and would like to cooperate with him.

From then on, every spring, Pioneer would instruct local distributors to organize a team of farmers to help sow seeds with the mechanized seed drills. In Shitie county, in central China's Shanxi province, the team charges 300 yuan to sow a hectare with corn. In good years, each hectare can yield crops worth 30,000 yuan.

"These technologies improve efficiency and make the work of planting easier. To the farmers, they are revolutionary," says Wei Yuejin, a local agricultural officer.

Liu says: "You first have to create value for the farmers. Then you will be rewarded by the market." Once again, his golden fingers took a firm grip on the market's demand curve. In the following years, sales of Pioneer's seeds soared.

Storm's eye

The rapid expansion of Pioneer's market share has alarmed some Chinese observers. Some of them fear Chinese farmers might become too dependent on seeds from foreign companies. Others warned against the scenario of China's agricultural sector being controlled by big multinationals.

Standing in the storm's eye, Liu was an easy target. "You are a guilty person in China's history because you promoted Pioneer's seeds," said one comment on Liu's blog, made eight months after he left Pioneer.

But to Liu, the introduction of foreign seeds could facilitate the development of China's seed industry. "China lags behind in technology and research capability in the seed industry. The government should promote innovation in the seed industry under the current administrative structure. We need to change and learn from multinationals," he says.

It was not the provenance of the seeds that prompted Liu to leave Pioneer. After so many years, he felt he had gone as far as he could. It was as though a "glass-ceiling" was pressing against his head. It is hard to break through. Liu said with a gentle sigh.

"Long Ping High-Tech is a different platform. It is a Chinese company and it allows me more freedom," he adds. "A good seed can adapt to different environments. So can I."