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It all started with a hay named alfalfa, which, like a seed, gave birth to S&S AgriSource Holding. In less than a decade, the little seed grew and spread, enabling S&S to become an agriculture company drawing investments from both Chinese and American investors.

Widely grown throughout the world, alfalfa is a premium forage primarily used for high-producing dairy cows because of its high-protein content and highly digestible fiber, and secondarily for beef cattle, horses and sows.

"Many people are surprised when they learn that China is buying hay from the US. Apparently it doesn't seem that cool compared to importing aircraft. But the fact is, agriculture products are China's main import from the US, and alfalfa makes up to 1 percent of the total imports,'' said Lisa Yang, founder and CFO of Houston-based S&S AgriSource.

As for alfalfa, China has been the biggest buyer of the product from the US since 2014. In 2015, China accounted for 45 percent of the total amount of alfalfa exported from the US.

"We believe the market will continue to grow due to China's dairy sector growth and its resource and infrastructure limitations," said Yang.

By 2015, S&S AgriSource had become the fourth-biggest US alfalfa hay exporter to China. The company's total exports accounted for 18 percent of all alfalfa imported by China. Its clients include China dairy giants such as Yili, Modern Dairy and Bright Dairy.

S&S AgriSource's major operations are located in Western states, such as California, Idaho, Utah and Arizona, where plants produce the most hay for exporting.

"Our people in the purchase department live and travel between different fields all year round; some of them can't stay with their families for most of the year. They are our backbone," she said.

Most of the company's 30-plus employees are Chinese who graduated with an American university degree, according to Yang.

"It's not easy for an international student to get a job after graduation, especially considering the additional cost a company needs to pay to sponsor a foreign worker when the economy is stagnant. But we want to help those hard-working young people with the American dream to succeed and grow with us. We even consider offering company shares to our excellent employees, all of whom will have the opportunity to become shareholders in the coming years," said Yang.

To gain a firm foothold in the industry and secure a stable supply of alfalfa, S&S AgriSource has kept moving up the production chain.

In 2013, the company acquired a 72,000 square-foot warehouse in Long Beach, California. The warehouse is strategically located by a railroad and 20 minutes away from Long Beach Port. The company can transport alfalfa from inland farms for pressing and packaging and ship to China by boat with low transportation costs.

In 2015, the company moved further up the production chain by purchasing more than 1,200 acres in Idaho to grow its own alfalfa. "The land is of USDA certified organic soil for growing alfalfa. We integrated our production chain upstream so that our company can develop sustainably. We now compete in the production line, from growing and processing to exporting," said Yang.

With China's announcement of its second-child policy, Yang believes that China's demand for dairy products will continue to grow and the company will grow with it. "We are currently looking to purchase alfalfa farm land in Arizona. We are ready to purchase an additional 2,800 acres," she said.

While completing its production chain, S&S AgriSource has developed a nine-step quality- control process for alfalfa as well as a reference tool to ensure quality.

"We strictly select our cooperating farmers and the fields for growing crops. Our alfalfa hay is tended by farmers all with several generations of growing experience," said Yang. "As of now, we are working with China to develop our quality control system into an industry standard."

The company's alfalfa hay business has expanded beyond the US, according to Yang. It also gets hay from other countries such as Spain and Argentina to meet customers' different demands.

"Since establishing the company, we strongly believe agriculture represents the future. It's where humans become themselves and what life ultimately relies on," Yang said.

With this belief, the company is expanding beyond hay into grain, beef and cattle trading.

"China's appetite for beef is growing fast. S&S AgriSource started exporting high-quality beef from Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil to China last year," Yang said. S&S AgriSource has recruited a professional team with more 30 years' experience in the beef industry.

Short on land and water, China's need for imported agricultural products will continue to grow.

"We know China better than elsewhere as we were born and grew up there. We feel honorable and mission-driven to provide the best of the world's agriculture products to feed the people in the county. Our mission is to be the most reliable exporter, professionally serving our customer. We work to be the first choice when Chinese partners want to import alfalfa or other agriculture products from the US," said Yang.

With S&S AgriSource ‘s business success, has come a sense of social responsibility. The company initiated a program in China to provide milk to a few hundred poor elementary school students in Shandong, and Yang said she hopes to mobilize more people to help.

Another program gives scholarships to college students at China Agricultural University, Yang said.

Yang also is using her personal money and working with a partner in China to build a k-12 primary school in a poor rural area in China. She also hopes this will work as a platform for AgriSource employees to make contributions for the good of society.

"At S&S AgriSource, we respect mother nature, and work for clean food and a bright future. We believe in doing the right thing, believe in sun and soil, and we believe in AgriSource's future," Yang said.