Turtle Prices Soar a Hundredfold: Man Who Tamed Turtles Earns 20 Million a Year, Revealing the Fortune-Building Secrets of a Turtle Obsessive
△Asian giant tortoise eggs
As sales of turtle hatchlings picked up, Chen Mingqiu set his sights on rare turtles. The black-necked turtle, which others turned their noses up at, Chen Mingqiu raised at home like a treasure.
As early as 2010, he noticed that the market for black-necked turtles was looking promising, so he began breeding hatchlings. By 2011, the price of black-necked turtle breeding stock had risen to over three thousand yuan per jin, and hatchlings could sell for several thousand yuan each. The value of black-necked turtles had risen a hundredfold, and everyone rushed in droves to buy them. Many people came to his door seeking to buy hatchlings, which made Chen Mingqiu worry about the risks of the market.
△Chen Mingqiu
Chen Mingqiu of Tunchang, Hainan, is a locally famous turtle obsessive. In his home, all kinds of turtles can be seen everywhere. Any turtle he has never seen before, he will buy no matter how high the price. On Chen Mingqiu's farm there are more than 100 species of turtles, over 100,000 of them, and this is how he made his fortune. Today, Chen Mingqiu's turtles can bring him an income of 20 million yuan each year.
Making His First Pot of Gold by Raising Golden Coin Turtles
When Chen Mingqiu was a child, his health was not very good. Someone gave him a turtle to eat, and his body gradually grew stronger, and from then on he became interested in turtles. Chen Mingqiu heard that golden coin turtles had spiritual essence and were nutritious, so he began raising golden coin turtles specifically. Starting in the 1990s, golden coin turtles were in great demand and prices rose sharply, bringing Chen Mingqiu his first pot of gold. At his peak, his golden coin turtles accounted for one third of all of Hainan Island.
△Golden coin turtle
Not Content with the Status Quo, He Expands and Strengthens the Turtle Business
Just when everyone thought Chen Mingqiu would surely focus on raising golden coin turtles, he instead put his focus on collecting all kinds of different turtle species. Whether or not they had economic value, he would buy them to raise. Around 2000, Chen Mingqiu became the person in Hainan who raised the most turtles. He raised more than 100 species, over 100,000 turtles, ranging from as cheap as a dozen yuan each to as expensive as over three million yuan each.
Around 2010, Chen Mingqiu's ecologically farmed turtles had already formed two categories. Besides rare and famous turtles such as golden coin turtles, he had also bred a considerable number of food and medicinal turtles, which became an important part of his turtle fortune. These turtles were sold to the several hundred regular customers he had built up over the decades, most of them hotels and pharmaceutical factories.
When Turtles Were Hard to Sell, He Went into the Upstream Turtle Business
Just when Chen Mingqiu's business was booming, in 2010 he encountered an unprecedented crisis. Because ecologically raised turtles take a long time to grow and cost a lot, customers all said the turtles were delicious but the price was unacceptable. Chen Mingqiu's turtles piled up unsold in large numbers, and his business was affected as never before. That year, output dropped by seven or eight million, equivalent to one third of his wealth going down the drain. Seeing the turtles he had painstakingly bred fetch no good price, Chen Mingqiu said nothing, but he was anxious inside. Which way should he go next?
△Small turtle hatchling
He resolutely transformed his business and sought out new opportunities. Chen Mingqiu discovered that food turtles indeed had a very large market. But turtle farmers needed hatchlings, and breeding hatchlings required large amounts of capital and technical skill, conditions not everyone had. So could he go into the upstream market of the turtle business and sell hatchlings to the growing number of turtle farmers?
Chen Mingqiu decided to start with the Asian giant tortoise, which had relatively large sales. Asian giant tortoises were mainly sold to hotels; the market in Haikou could use several thousand jin per day, and the profits were high, with hatchlings selling for six or seven hundred yuan each. If a bucket of eggs could hatch 50 Asian giant tortoise hatchlings, and one hatchling was worth 600 yuan, then the value of that bucket of eggs would be 30,000 yuan.
To avoid market risks, Chen Mingqiu traveled around making inquiries. During his visits, the sharp-eyed Chen Mingqiu made a new discovery: among the various black-necked turtles, the Hainan black-necked turtle was extremely few in number and had a unique appearance, with great market potential! So whenever a Hainan black-necked turtle appeared on the market, he would pay a high price to buy it, investing more than ten million over two years.
By 2013, sure enough, prices for the various black-necked turtle species began to differentiate, and the Hainan black-necked turtle that Chen Mingqiu had favored rose the most! By 2015, Hainan black-necked turtle hatchlings had risen from several thousand yuan each to over a hundred thousand yuan each, an increase of 40 times.
Getting Rich Together with Impoverished Households
In Hainan, the Chinese stripe-necked turtle is the food turtle species in greatest demand on the market. Haikou needs about 4 tons of edible Chinese stripe-necked turtles every day, and hotels across Hainan generally have this turtle on their menus. In addition, the Chinese stripe-necked turtle is hardy and easy to raise, so starting in 2014 it was chosen by the Tunchang County government as a poverty alleviation project. The Tunchang County government approached Chen Mingqiu, asking him to provide help to farmers and ordering hatchlings from him.
Today, Chen Mingqiu's turtles can bring him an income of 20 million yuan each year. By 2015, he had trained more than 300 impoverished households free of charge, and he hopes to realize the dream of getting rich by raising turtles together with more people.