Business bears fruit for all

Despite seeming like an easy decision to make, Liu Xiaojun, a rural entrepreneur in Anhui province, said investing in the village where he was born has been a highly complicated process.

"Having personal relations with the villagers has brought me benefits as well as setbacks," said Liu, who runs a nectarine farm in Sanfeng village, Jingde county.

More than six years ago, he quit his job at a business consulting company in Beijing and returned to his boyhood village to start the farm.

Liu said his decision to invest in the farm was a result of his affection for the agricultural sector and for Sanfeng. However, he had no idea how complicated starting a business in the mountainous village would be.

Liu said he was the apple of the villagers' eyes as a child. However, despite now being one of the very few local residents with a college education, he found a majority of villagers had little faith in his business plan.

"It seems like I will always be a little boy in their eyes," the 34-year-old said.

At the end of 2010, Liu rented more than 5 hectares of land through land transfer from local villagers. Though he sought long-term cooperation with them, he was only granted use of the land for 15 years, "which is a short time in terms of the growth of the trees", Liu said.

"Also, they didn't allow me to combine the small lots to make larger ones," he said, adding that he even had trouble convincing his own parents.

"For example, when I banned the use of herbicide on the farm, my father insisted on using it. It was only after the herbicide killed dozens of trees that he agreed to abandon the practice, but he still didn't really understand why I want to produce eco-friendly fruits," Liu said.