Village Party Secretary Develops Aquaculture, Producing Seven Hundred Fish Farmers
“Secretary Li, thank you so much. Without you, how could my fish farming have grown to such a scale?” In late July, Li Shenxue, Party secretary of Shiyu Village, Jiangbei Town, Jiangyang District, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, went to the rice fields of Wang Shibin, a major fish farmer in Ganba Village, Jiangbei Town, to inspect the farming conditions. Wang Shibin held Li Shenxue's hand and thanked him profusely.
Li Shenxue, now 60 years old, returned home after being discharged from the military and happened to find the production team contracting out collective fish ponds. He contracted 5 mu. A year later, Li Shenxue earned nearly 700 yuan from fish farming. After the 10-year contract expired, he had earned more than 20,000 yuan. Thus, Li Shenxue became a locally renowned expert fish farmer.
In 1992, Li Shenxue mobilized 6 fellow veterans to contract a 60-mu reservoir in Fangshan Village, Kuangchang Town, for fish farming, generating more than 600,000 yuan in net income over 6 years.
However, the road to success is never smooth. After the contract for Fangshan Reservoir ended, Li Shenxue contracted a reservoir in Ganba Village and tried farming specialty fish. Unexpectedly, within just two months, more than 1,000 jin of fish died, resulting in a loss of over 7,000 yuan. Afterward, Li Shenxue went to Chengdu, Chongqing and other places to learn techniques. Upon returning, he invested 100,000 yuan in stages to purchase specialty fish fry such as Wuchang fish and mandarin fish from Guangdong, Hubei and other places.
Hard work pays off. Nine months later, Li Shenxue's quality fish were warmly welcomed as soon as they hit the market; some fish were fully booked before they were even caught, earning him more than 30,000 yuan that year. Subsequently, Li Shenxue also began farming famous specialty aquatic fish such as rouge fish, rock carp and longsnout catfish, developing all the way to the present, with annual income reaching more than 300,000 yuan.
After making his fortune through fish farming, many people around him wanted to learn fish farming techniques from Li Shenxue. In 2000, Li Shenxue took the lead in organizing 21 fish farming enthusiasts to establish the Jiangbei Specialty Aquaculture Professional Technical Association and served as its president. Because he was deeply trusted by the masses, in 2004, Li Shenxue was elected Party secretary of Ganba Village, and at the end of 2015 he also became Party secretary of Shiyu Village.
As the number of farmers grew, in 2009 Li Shenxue also established the Kangda Aquaculture Professional Cooperative. After several years of development, the cooperative has reached more than 600 members, the number of farming households has increased to nearly 700, the cooperative's annual output value has reached 38 million yuan, and it has radiated out to drive more than 1,500 farming households to develop rice-field fish farming on more than 5,000 mu, with each household increasing income by an average of 23,000 yuan. Relying on the cooperative, the villagers have gradually embarked on the road to prosperity. In April 2015, because of his effective approach to enriching the people, Li Shenxue was also awarded the title of “National Model Worker.”
Yuan Yuhua