Though small, bamboo rats are easy to raise and fetch a decent price
Crossing a low-water bridge over the Chengpo River, the emerald-green screen of bamboo forest in Qiandui Village, Heping Town, Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County, suddenly appears before your eyes. Although the Start of Autumn has already passed, the bamboo still shoots straight up, so green it seems about to drip.
Bamboo is a poverty-alleviation livestock product that Qiandui Village is vigorously promoting, and it is also the favorite food of bamboo rats. The reason the village chose to raise bamboo rats is not only its abundant bamboo resources, but also factors such as staggering the market peak with other livestock products.
Wild-simulated farming has broad prospects
“These bamboos were planted back when our parents' generation was around. At first, because they grew too tall and blocked the light for the betel nut trees, the plan was to cut them all down. Now that the village cooperative has started specialty bamboo rat farming, the bamboo doesn't need to be cut and can all be used to feed the bamboo rats.” Said Chen Shiquan, a skilled bamboo rat raiser and member of the Qiandui Village Bamboo Rat Farming Cooperative: “Raising bamboo rats is low-cost and sells for a high price, bringing hope of prosperity to the whole village.”
On August 9, the reporter saw the bamboo rats raised by the Qiandui Village Bamboo Rat Farming Cooperative: furry and plump, gray all over, two or three living in one compartment, either curled up in a corner sleeping, or squeaking, or vigorously gnawing bamboo to grind their teeth.
The compartments are built from ceramic tiles, with a row of ventilation holes drilled by hand on one side, and the floor poured with cement to prevent the bamboo rats from digging burrows and escaping. Chen Shiquan said that bamboo rats love cleanliness, and the ventilation holes also serve as the exit through which the bamboo rats push out leftover bamboo scraps and other waste.
Shi Leguang, the first secretary stationed in Qiandui, said that this wild-simulated farming product may be small in size, but it doesn't sell cheap. He explained that artificially domesticated bamboo rats date back to the 1990s; they eat raw bamboo stalks and stems, and their meat is fine-grained and lean, extremely delicious, and highly nutritious. It is a low-fat, low-cholesterol meat product, deeply loved by domestic consumers, and the farming market has broad prospects.
Each bamboo rat sells for more than 300 yuan
“Bamboo rats are also called bamboo rats, and their staple food is bamboo. Usually they are also given some corn stalks and sugarcane, and for pregnant bamboo rats we also feed a small amount of rice bran.” Chen Jinxiang of the cooperative spoke endlessly when it came to farming techniques: “A female rat can give birth to 2 to 6 pups per litter, with 3 to 4 litters each year. Bamboo rats can be marketed after one year of farming. An adult bamboo rat of 3 to 4 jin, calculated at the current market price of 100 yuan per jin, can bring in more than 300 yuan each. The key is that raising bamboo rats takes little effort; just trim their teeth on time. The cooperative has someone on duty in rotation every day, and raising bamboo rats also saves a lot of manpower.”
Shi Leguang explained that the cooperative currently has 11 member households, including 6 registered poor households. Next, the poverty-alleviation team from the General Office of the Provincial Party Committee will further increase support, expanding the rat sheds by 120 sq m and introducing 250 pairs of bamboo rat breeding stock. “An elderly couple in the village raised 400 bamboo rats and can earn 100,000 yuan a year, with no worries about sales. Wherever the bamboo rats were purchased from, they are bought back from there. We have signed buyback agreements with bamboo rat farming companies in other provinces, and a jin of bamboo rat sells for at least 80 yuan.” Shi Leguang said.
No matter how easy they are to raise, they still need careful care. When the teeth grow too long, they must be trimmed in time; the bamboo must not have black spots, and should not be too wet; the sugarcane must not have red spots; the temperature in the rat shed must not be too cold or too hot.
Seeking new sales channels through online platforms
Chang Yingwei, a village-stationed cadre, believes that although purchasing breeding rats in the early stage requires a large investment, the cooperative resolutely chose to introduce this breed of bamboo rat because what it values most is being able to stagger the market peak with traditional poverty-alleviation livestock breeds such as black pigs, goats, chickens, ducks and geese.
“When they all hit the market together, prices are affected by the market, and the enthusiasm of poverty-alleviation beneficiaries for farming is dampened.” Chang Yingwei believes that the bamboo rat market is currently in short supply with broad prospects, and Qiandui Village should go all out to develop the bamboo rat farming industry.
Through the active leadership of members of the Qiandui Bamboo Rat Farming Cooperative, more and more villagers are willing to join the ranks of bamboo rat farming. Next, Qiandui Village will also actively seek online platforms to open up new sales channels for bamboo rats.
On the poverty-alleviation path, Qiongzhong proposed “proactively adjusting the structure of the poverty-alleviation industry, that is, broadening the channels for increasing farmers' income.” Qiandui Village is the first to try it out; Qiandui's “farming + planting” model has achieved integrated use of wild-simulated bamboo rat farming and abundant bamboo forest resources.
In response to the problem that in the future a large amount of bamboo forest will occupy forest land, Wang Dabiao, Party branch secretary of Qiandui Village, said that new varieties such as forage grass will also be introduced, using grass stalks to feed the bamboo rats, promoting the sustainable development of the specialty bamboo rat farming industry chain.