Crayfish farming crawls out a road to poverty alleviation and prosperity
In the countryside in May, plants and trees form shade, orioles sing and swallows dance. Look, across the vast fields, someone is carrying a shrimp bucket and shuttling through the crayfish farming base, busy beyond measure. He is Zhang Xinliu, and one reddish crayfish after another has "crawled" out a road to poverty alleviation for him.
Zhang Xinliu, 41 this year, is an ordinary villager in the Dazhanghu villager group of Taodaicui Village, Guquan Town, Xuanzhou District. At age 18, having just graduated from junior high school, Zhang Xinliu traveled far and wide with dreams of making a fortune. He worked in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing and other places, and was bent on learning a trade. In the end, he learned no trade and earned no money. By chance, he and a colleague went to Xuyi, Jiangsu, and unexpectedly arrived during the local crayfish festival, so he and his colleague ate to their hearts' content: "Thirteen-spice crayfish," "clear-water crayfish," "red-through crayfish"... This stirred endless reveries in him.
To savor fine food and enjoy a delicacy on the tip of the tongue, is that not a wonderful thing? From then on, Zhang Xinliu decided to take the path of crayfish farming. The freshwater crayfish is an economic freshwater shrimp species. It has 6 major characteristics: large and plump body; fast growth and high yield; rich nutrition and tender meat; strong adaptability, able to survive in harsh weather and environments; omnivorous feeding habits, able to eat animal feed as well as artificial compound feed and humus; and high economic benefit. Zhang Xinliu strengthened his determination to return home and develop crayfish farming.
"To see China's crayfish, look to Hubei; to see Hubei's crayfish, look to Qianjiang." In line with this saying in the industry, in March 2015, Zhang Xinliu went in person to learn from a master. He took great pains, learned humbly, and filled one detailed notebook after another. Even now he still keeps such farming records.
After returning from his training, Zhang Xinliu contracted more than 20 mu of abandoned low-lying farmland in the villager group and dug it into shrimp ponds. Based on the knowledge he had learned, he boldly invested more than 200,000 yuan to begin his crayfish farming. Heaven does not disappoint the diligent. The crayfish he carefully farmed were not only large in size and reddish in color, but also survived for a long time after being taken out of the water, and were highly praised by buyers. That year he made a profit of 80,000 yuan. This further increased his confidence, so while expanding the farming scale, he also studied farming techniques. In practice, he also figured out how to maintain water depth according to different seasons, crayfish habits, food types, and so on. He also started with feed, painstakingly studying pure grain feed, researching scientific ratios, and applying his own "unique secret formula" at the farming base, giving the crayfish characteristics such as being pollution-free and naturally green. At present, buyers from Nanjing, Wuxi and other places are coming one after another to purchase them.
May, everything is full of hope. Zhang Xinliu, who has embarked on the road to poverty alleviation, is learning internet sales and starting to establish a "network + base + farmers" farming model, so as to drive more villagers to get rich by raising shrimp.