Turtle farming opens up a new path to prosperity
A Cheng makes his rounds at the farm.
This is the yellow-margined box turtle, worth over 10,000 yuan per 500 grams.
Driving about 4 km from the center of Fusha Town along a village road brings you to Fenglian Village. Fenglian Village is the most remote village in Fusha Town, and also the village with the least industry and the most pristine ecology. Its nights have no dazzling lights and no bustling noise. In the quiet air, a few croaks occasionally ring out, creating a distinctive mood. Following a small path along a stream from the village committee for about 1 km, a farm shrouded in darkness all around actually "hides" a farming business worth tens of millions of yuan. On the eve of Qingming Festival, the reporter paid a nighttime visit.
■ Ecological farmland transformed into a turtle and soft-shelled turtle farm
This farm raises turtles and soft-shelled turtles, and whether by day or by night, it "does business behind closed doors." In the night, no sign is visible at the entrance, and it is even harder for outsiders to discover that inside "hides" a site covering 55 mu and housing turtles and soft-shelled turtles worth over ten million yuan. After knocking on the door, the young post-80s boss A Cheng received the reporter. "Turtles and soft-shelled turtles need to be raised in a quiet, pristine ecological environment free from outside disturbance and air pollution. That is why I chose to build the turtle and soft-shelled turtle breeding base on this piece of ecological farmland," A Cheng explained.
The entire farm seemed especially quiet. Apart from A Cheng and his two stylish luxury cars, there were no other people or vehicles. A Cheng said that the thousands of turtles and soft-shelled turtles on the farm are currently basically handled by him alone. "In our industry, people generally raise them themselves and rarely hire workers, because different turtles and soft-shelled turtles have different temperaments and activity habits. If outsiders are hired to raise them and do not understand these conditions, once problems arise, the losses are unimaginable."
Arriving at the main hall of the farm, several dozen rectangular turtle ponds of various sizes were built inside. A large pond had shallow water at one end, a slope at the other, and at the top of the slope there was also a sand pit divided by a □. Approaching the turtle ponds, each pond contained a dozen or even dozens of dark turtles, their heads and feet retracted into their shells; without looking carefully, one would think they were stones. A Cheng told the reporter that from December to April is the hibernation period for turtles and soft-shelled turtles, when they move very little, so caring for them during this time is relatively easy; the daily work only requires changing the water in the ponds on time. But at night, he must stay with the turtles and soft-shelled turtles and cannot leave them for even a step. "Turtles and soft-shelled turtles are different from people. They mainly come out to move at night, so I must make a round before sleeping to see whether there are any abnormalities. At the same time, I must also inspect all doors, windows, and monitoring equipment on the site to avoid lawbreakers taking the opportunity to break in and steal. The most expensive turtle or soft-shelled turtle here is over 3 million yuan, and ordinary ones are also worth over ten thousand yuan. Losing even one means a considerable loss," A Cheng said.
After Qingming Festival, the truly busy time of the year for turtle farmers arrives. "After the hibernation period comes the egg-laying season for turtles and soft-shelled turtles. They usually lay eggs at night, and these eggs must be taken to a greenhouse for incubation," A Cheng said.
■ Raising turtles and soft-shelled turtles has good returns and has quietly become popular
Regarding the prospects of the turtle and soft-shelled turtle farming industry, A Cheng said that although the market is currently sluggish, he remains full of confidence. "This industry is one with slow returns but big rewards. The longer you raise them, the more profit you make. Before I formed a large-scale farm, I raised a few as a hobby, and went from several tens of thousands of yuan to several hundred thousand yuan."
Taking the "stone coin turtle" as an example, A Cheng carefully calculated the returns of this kind of turtle. He said that a 10-gram turtle hatchling costs about 300 yuan, and each 0.5 kg of growth costs about 40 to 50 yuan; after 3 years, when it grows to 1 kg, it can be sold as a commercial turtle. Last year, the market price of commercial turtles was 1,200 yuan per kg. In other words, the net profit from raising one commercial turtle is at least 600 to 700 yuan, and if raised for more than 4 years and sold as a breeding turtle after laying eggs, one kg can sell for more than 2,000 yuan. If a farm raises them full-time, one person can raise 2,000 to 3,000. If they are precious varieties such as the "black-necked turtle," the profits are even more considerable.
Besides low costs and high returns, turtles are also very easy to raise. "In a simulated ecological pond, about 20 can be raised per sq m, and they are easy to manage. Moreover, turtles have no infectious diseases, and the survival rate is as high as over 95%," A Cheng said. In addition, turtles only need to be fed once a day and have their water changed once every two days, and they begin hibernating when the water temperature falls below 20°C. Precisely because of this, in recent years more and more people in Zhongshan have been raising turtles, and even some office workers have started raising turtles at home in their spare time. According to statistics, Zhongshan currently has more than 500 turtle farming households, with a farming area of more than 1 million sq m, mainly raising several dozen varieties such as the golden coin turtle, stone coin turtle, Annam turtle, black-necked turtle, and alligator snapping turtle. At present, the city has a total of 5 specialized cooperatives for turtle and soft-shelled turtle farming and 3 women's farming bases.
According to Wu Jianwen, a village cadre of Fenglian Village, the turtle and soft-shelled turtle farm is one of the projects that have moved into the still-under-construction Zhongshan Fishery Expo Park. Fenglian Village plans to take advantage of the opportunity of further planning and construction of the Fishery Expo Park to try developing ecological leisure and sightseeing agriculture, and strive to build a group of leisure agriculture parks integrating folk culture, rural experiences, shopping and food, so as to achieve the goals of increasing agricultural efficiency and raising farmers' incomes.