With millions of geese, prosperity flutters in

After an airborne snow-white feather flutters to the ground, Sun Zhenghai picks it up and throws it in with millions of others. Then he picks up a shuttlecock, the projectile used in badminton that 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 Anhui province covers 72,000 square feet.

Anhui Huayu Sporting Goods sold more than 24 million shuttlecocks worldwide last year, 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, the local government says.

“The goose-breeding sector provides an important material source for my business,” Sun said. Sun, 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 cycled 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. 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. In 2009 he built his company’s plant and equipped the assembly line, a project of eight million yuan (£970,000). However, eight years later, pushed hard by the competition from online selling, traditional sales stagnated.

“Then I persuaded my son and son-in-law to return from other cities to help me with online marketing,” Sun said.

With the success of companies such as Sun’s, Ganchahe township’s government has been cultivating and attracting more manufacturers, says Wang Huanran, deputy Party secretary of the township, which has a population of 40,000. They began producing shuttlecocks, then rackets and sports shirts and shoes, Wang said.

“Now the township has more than 100 companies that process feathers and make sporting goods, and the value of feathers processed is about 1.5 billion yuan [£180m],” Wang said.

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 (£483), Chen said, she is satisfied with her work and family arrangement.

Cao Youjun, 71, a villager in Ganchahe, is paid even more to raise 1,200 Wanxi white geese. In early February 2022 he bought the goslings for the eighth year of his business. The geese were the first group for this year and will be ready for sale in about three months, Cao said. After that he will raise 800 more.

“You don’t worry about whether you can sell them,” Cao said. “There are just so many buyers. In a year I can earn more than 60,000 yuan [£7,245].”

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

The value of Lu’an’s exports of feather and down products was 810 million yuan (£98m) last year, according to government figures.

Yang Xiuling contributed to this story.

Previously published on Chinadaily.com.cn