King of rabbits reproduces himself
Date: June 15 2002

A Chinese success story is teaching others how to become as rich as he is, writes John Schauble.

Ren Xuping was the runt of the litter in his village of Yuanyang in western Sichuan province. A scrawny 13-year-old, his family was too poor to send him to high school and he was not strong enough to labour in the rice fields.

In the summer of 1980, his father brought home two rabbits, one a pregnant doe, for his son to look after. Eight weeks later, the two became 10.

Young Ren sold the eight little bunnies for three yuan ($A0.80) a pair. "I was very happy," he recalled this week. With the money he bought more does, and an empire was born.

More than 5.5 million rabbits later, Ren is a very rich man. Not that you would guess this to meet him. There is no fancy house, no BMW, no bejewelled wristwatch, indeed none of the ostentatious signs that so often mark out China's new rich. Instead, the 35-year-old, acclaimed as China 's "rabbit king", has poured most of the money back into the business of breeding and selling rabbits for meat and fur.

His enterprise always had two things going for it: people in Sichuan love rabbit meat, and the animals themselves are, of course, remarkably fecund.

Ren estimates his Sichuan Xuping Rabbit Company has assets of about 10 million yuan ($A2.4 million), all earned on the back of the humble bunny.

Along the way he has won the accolades of the local and central Chinese governments, been acclaimed as a model worker and received a visit from the architect of China 's economic reforms, the late Deng Xiaoping.

Ren's story is the kind that China 's Government would like to see replicated, to show that its policies of "opening up and reform" have worked. This is especially so in rural areas, where the more common solution among the poor is simply to drift away to the cities in search of work.

Ren's early successes as a rabbit breeder attracted the attention of local Communist Party officials. Then in 1985 the United States-based aid agency Heifer International, which since 1944 has provided livestock and training to poor farmers in 47 nations, was looking for skilled rabbit breeders to kick-start a program in China .

Ren was singled out to receive a breeding stock of 48 Californian and New Zealand pure-breds, together with technical training from Heifer.

A key concept of the Heifer organisation is that each recipient must pass on to others some of the offspring of the farm animals they receive. Called "passing on the gift", it is aimed at helping communities to become self-sustaining.

Ren has repaid his debt many times over, combining philanthropy with business by passing on thousands of free rabbits and training poor local families. He has also been involved in sending rabbits to North Korea and will soon send a clutch to Thailand .

There is an almost missionary-like zeal in his rabbit kingdom. In 1990 he established the Xuping Rabbit Training School, where some 300,000 farmers from across China have come to study rabbit husbandry. In some villages surrounding his base in Dayi County, 50 kilometres from Chengdu, up to 40 per cent of farmers are now keeping rabbits.

More than 100 of the families Ren has encouraged into the rabbit business have become yuan millionaires, with assets in excess of $A240,000.

Even modest rabbit farming ventures can provide an annual income roughly three times that of the average farmer.

Meanwhile, Ren has found other ways to spread the word. He is the author of four bestsellers, including 100 Questions on Raising Rabbits, and his Web site (www.chinarabbitking.com) receives thousands of hits each week.