Fine feathers help to spread prosperity

A snow-white feather rises in the air, then flutters to the ground, and Sun Zhenghai picks it up and throws it in with millions of others. Then he picks up a shuttle, the projectile used in badminton－each of which has 16 goose feathers－and shows it to visitors.

Sun, the founder and president of Anhui Huayu Sports Goods, has witnessed the development of the local feather processing industry. His plant in Ganchahe township of Shucheng county in East China's Anhui province covers 6,700 square meters.

Anhui Huayu Sporting Goods sold more than 24 million badminton shuttles at home and overseas in 2021, accounting for about one-third of the township's annual production.

The city of Lu'an, which administers Shucheng county, annually produces more than 14 million Wanxi white geese, a local species, according to the local government.

"The goose breeding sector provides an important material source for my business," Sun said.

Sun, who was born in the late 1960s, is a native of the township's Hongdang village. In the early 1990s, he joined the villagers in the feather trade in rural areas.

"I rode a bicycle to villages, buying goose and duck feathers kept by rural households," said Sun, who in turn sold the feathers to major dealers at a higher price.

The business was laborious but profitable. He soon bought a motorbike so he could travel farther.

In 1996, Sun started a workshop in the yard of his house. He processed the feathers that he had purchased－washing, sun-drying and slicing them－before selling them to companies outside Lu'an.

Local badminton shuttle producers gradually began to emerge and grow in number.

"My business then soared and I had to purchase feathers from even outside Anhui province," said Sun.

In 2009, he invested 8 million yuan ($1.26 million) to build his company's plant and equip the assembly line.

In 2017, due to the impact of e-commerce, traditional sales stagnated. "Then I persuaded my son and son-in-law to return from other cities to help me with online marketing," said Sun.

With the success of companies such as Sun's, Ganchahe township's government has been cultivating and attracting more manufacturers, according to Wang Huanran, deputy Party secretary of the township, which has more than 40,000 residents.

They began producing badminton shuttles, then rackets and sports shirts and shoes, according to Wang.

"Now the township has more than 100 enterprises of feather processing and sporting goods, and the feather processing sector alone sees an annual output value of about 1.5 billion yuan," Wang said.

Experienced workers

Since Shucheng county has formed an intact industry chain for such businesses, it has been easy to find experienced workers locally, Sun said.

For example, Chen Tongwei, 36, had been working for another local plant until three years ago, before observing the machinery and other workers in the Huayu plant, which has about 150 workers.

Chen, a Hongdang villager, is responsible for quality control. Her husband works in a city far from home, and she stays in the village to take care of her son, a middle-school student. With a monthly wage of nearly 4,000 yuan, Chen said she is satisfied with her work and family arrangement.

Cao Youjun, 71, a villager in Ganchahe, earns even more by raising 1,200 Wanxi white geese.

In early February, he purchased the goslings for the eighth year of his business.

The breeders get subsidies from the local government to cover part of their costs, such as buying goslings, according to local officials.

Cao said the geese were the first group for this year and will be ready for sale in about three months. After that, Cao will raise 800 more.

He started by raising just dozens of geese eight years ago, and then he believed he had enough experience to expand.

"You don't worry about the selling, there are just so many buyers," said Cao, adding that the goose species is favored not only by feather processing companies but also restaurants and food processing companies.

"In a single year, I can earn more than 60,000 yuan from the breeding," said Cao.

The locally produced feathers are preferred by down garment companies as well as sporting goods makers.

Government statistics show that Lu'an's export value of feather and down products reached 810 million yuan last year.

A city government plan in 2019 said the city's white goose breeding scale will reach more than 20 million annually by 2025, with the comprehensive total output value reaching more than 10 billion yuan.