Local employees are busy with sewing in Liupanshan Industiral Park in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (XINHUA)

Zhou Zhengyin, founder of the Miao Ethnic Group Innovation Park in Zhongxin Village in southwest China's Guizhou Province, spent 15 years planting greenhouse vegetables as a migrant worker in east China's Jianshu Province – a coastal region some 1,635 km away from his hometown.

However, he didn't return to Jiangshu after the 2015 Spring Festival. Instead, he saw the potential of his hometown, discovering that it had changed greatly over the past decade, with more convenient transport networks and better access to information. Though, employment remained a big problem for local people.

"I decided to invest all my savings in renting land and building greenhouses to plant vegetables, providing jobs for my neighbors," Zhou told Gzbj.cn, a local online media news source.

He invited two more migrant workers to invest in his business. By May 2016, he had rented more than 70 mu (4.66 hectares) of farmland and built 52 greenhouses. Additionally, he set up an agricultural cooperative, employing more than 20 workers.

Greenhouses built by Zhou Zhengyin, who was a former migrant worker and is now the founder of the Miao Ethnic Group Innovation Park in Zhongxin Village in southwest China's Guizhou Province (GZBJ.CN)

Finding a niche back home

Zhou is not alone in the wave of migrant worker startups. Since China adopted the mass innovation and entrepreneurship strategy in October 2013, many ordinary people including migrant workers have formed their own businesses.

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) estimates that 4.5 million migrant workers, accounting for two percent of China's migrant population, have stopped flooding far away cities and alternatively have set up enterprises in their place or birth or small towns nearby.

Family farms, rural cooperatives and small and minor enterprises are the most common types of business set up by these migrant-worker entrepreneurs. Planting, breeding animals, processing and selling farm produce, and folk art and crafts are investment hotspots.

According to the latest data released by the MOA, 237,000 small and minor enterprises, 455,000 farm produce processing plants and 1.48 million rural cooperatives as well as 1.8 million agritourism services had been set up by migrant workers by the end of 2015.

Wang Xiaotao (front right), Deputy Chief of the National Development and Reform Commission on February 17 signed a cooperation agreement with Sun Lijun (front left), Vice President of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, to jointly stage 100 pilot programs to develop rural e-commerce over the next two years, assisting migrant workers to start up and settle down (XINHUA)

Government incentives

To support migrant-worker entrepreneurship, in June 2015 the Chinese Government released its first guidelines to encourage migrant workers to startup business in their rural hometowns.

Local governments have worked with financial institutions to issue loans and government subsidized micro-credit to migrant workers. Other supportive measures include rental and tax reductions. In addition, rural e-commerce makes the national market accessible to farmers.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, signed a cooperation agreement in February with e-commerce giant Alibaba, to jointly stage 100 pilot programs to develop rural e-commerce over the next two years, assisting migrant workers to start up and settle down.

During the 2016 Spring Festival, many residents sold local specialties and farm produce via Tmall, a major e-commerce site under Alibaba Group.

Cui Chuanyi, a fellow with the Rural Economy Department of Development Research of the State Council, said that small and minor enterprises set up by migrant workers have offered farmers more jobs. They account for part of the country's economy, helping to optimize its economic structure.

Hurdles ahead

In spite of the positive trend, some migrant workers lost their money in failed startup attempts. Overlapping investment, a lack of technology and market information, limited infrastructure and singularity in the business model are among the reasons for this failure.

Zhou encounters many obstacles too. Watering vegetables in his greenhouses is made problematic by underpowered voltage currents. The inconvenient final stretch of the shipping passage is another issue, hindering the farm's ability to transport its produce to the outside world. Technical guidance and expert support is also required.

In an attempt to remove some of the hurdles, the MOA will train 2,000 tutors to help migrant workers with their startups and 10,000 successful migrant-worker entrepreneurs will be appointed as innovation models. An entrepreneurship competition will be held among migrant workers and technical guidance and training will be offered to 13,000 young farm owners.

Copyedited by Dominic James Madar

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