CCTV News: With the comprehensive advancement of the rural revitalization strategy, a wave of young people returning to their hometowns to start businesses has emerged in rural my country. They not only bring new vitality and development opportunities to the countryside, but also allow young people to find goals. On February 3, "Going to the Grassroots" in Xinglong Town, Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, we went to Xinglong Town, Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to meet a new farmer who returned to the countryside and took root in the fertile fields. Let's see what he and his teammates are busy with on the eve of the Spring Festival?

This is a short video of Ma Liang and his friends selling potatoes. This batch of potatoes was harvested by the villagers at the end of 2024.

In 2009, Ma Liang, who graduated from Xi'an Foreign Studies University, worked in foreign-related work in many units, and his dream was to become a "diplomat." In 2020, he began to work in the self-media industry, and his main job was to help the people sell agricultural products. He also named himself the online name "Masno". This name is taken from the famous American journalist Edgar Snow.

Ma Liang, a self-media member of Xinglong Town, Xiji County, said: "Edgar Snow tells the world through English that the historical story that happened in our northwest 80 or 90 years ago. In the new era, we also want to tell the story of our hometown and the story of the northwest through our content."

Xihaigu was once a collective name for Xiji, Haiyuan and Guyuan counties, and was also synonymous with poverty. Over the years, the local area has not only reduced the number of poverty alleviation measures such as slope land transformation, well drilling, and relocation of poverty alleviation, which has not only prevented the people here from being poor due to water and mountains, but also developed many characteristic industries according to local conditions. Ma Liang, a post-80s generation, has lived here since he was a child, and he witnessed the changes in the lives of his hometown’s elders and villagers.

In 2020, he met his fellow villager Ma Haodong - a local documentary director. Both of them are in the countryside. Although they have left the land and reached the city, they always have a deep emotion towards their hometown and land. The two often talked about the development of their hometown together. Over time, they had the idea of ​​going home to start a business.

In 2023, the two returned to Xihaigu together. The people and things in Xihaigu provided them with rich creative materials. They shot nearly 60 short videos in one go, but most of them were mediocre.

The two of them thought about it repeatedly and decided to give full play to their own advantages, focusing on a "combination of earth and foreign countries": on the one hand, it is the local specialties grown in the earth and the dialect from earth to earth; on the other hand, it is Ma Liang's fluent English. So he put on a suit and gave a "English Speech in the Pumpkin Field".

In just one week, the number of views of "English Speech in the Pumpkin Field" reached 15 million, and 120,000 kilograms of Beibei pumpkins were sold out in two weeks.

With the experience of selling goods in English, the two people's confidence has increased greatly.

But they also found the problem: the inability to get out of the products in their hometown is mostly due to the imperfect industrial chain. Last year, they tried to process agricultural products such as buckwheat and honey, and started a factory to make oil products such as oil cakes, mozzarella, and squids.

The women who work in factories all come from surrounding villages. In the past, they could only farm and take care of their children, but now they have become good people in their families to increase their income.

Ma Liang and the others brought new hope to the villagers, and everyone helped each other to play supporting roles in his short videos, and Sai Qingxiang was one of them.

As the first self-media people to come to Xinglong Town to engage in creation, Ma Liang and others also received support from relevant local departments. In order to facilitate them to make better short videos, the local area actively coordinated office and logistics operation sites and began to build a "live broadcast town".

Since the short video of Bebe Pumpkin became popular, in just half a year, Ma Liang's team has helped his hometown sell about 370,000 kilograms of agricultural and local specialties such as red-skinned potatoes and Bebe Pumpkins.

Ma Liang and others are an important part of rural e-commerce and have promoted rural revitalization. Last year, Guyuan City achieved online retail sales of 2.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.8%; the express delivery volume was completed throughout the year. These young people who return to their hometown to start businesses are practitioners and witnesses.

Ma Liang said: "The countryside in northwest China is undergoing earth-shaking changes now. The countryside in northwest China is also an important part of the Chinese story. Then we spread and display our hometown to the outside world and show our countryside. I think friends must firmly believe that your hometown will not treat you badly. The hometown is a vast world and has great achievements."

At the end of our interview, a part of the new issue of the potato promotion video has been completed, and everyone is looking forward to whether the finished product will become the next hit.

New Plan for 2025 Potatoes aim at the foreign market

Not long ago, Ma Liang called to tell reporters that he went to Xi'an, Shaanxi. In 2025, he and Ma Haodong have some new ideas and new plans. Let's go and have a look together.

Ma Liang said: "I came to Xi'an. This time I came here mainly to learn about some policies on the export of agricultural and local specialty products and find new sales channels for good agricultural products in my hometown."

Ma Liang said: "I want to do our agricultural and local specialty products well to go overseas because there are continuous cross-border logistics partners online to contact us. We have never done these. I hope that in the golden autumn, we can promote agricultural products that are particularly good in our hometown to foreign countries."