The wealth-building entrepreneurial story of a female aquaculture leader

Chen Xiaolan, an aquaculture farmer in Beiquan Town, Shihezi General Farm, started as an ordinary fish farm worker and grew to have more than 280 mu of aquaculture area, an annual fish output of 243 tons, and an output value of 3.4 million yuan, becoming a widely known large-scale farmer. She has endless bittersweet experiences to tell.

In the autumn of 1987, Chen Xiaolan contracted more than 50 mu of fish ponds at the aquaculture farm of the Third Branch of Shihezi General Farm and began working in aquaculture. Because she did not understand aquaculture technology well at the time, she put in no small amount of effort, but her income was not high, and apart from supporting her family, little was left of her annual income. In 1996, the aquaculture farm was restructured and the fish ponds were sold off. Chen Xiaolan went around to relatives and friends, scraping together loans from here and there to buy 100 mu of fish ponds. Having suffered deeply from the bitterness and hardship of not understanding scientific aquaculture technology, she quietly made up her mind to learn aquaculture technology and master advanced scientific farming experience and methods. She purchased books such as "Knowledge of Fishery Aquaculture Technology" and subscribed to magazines and newspapers on aquaculture, studying hard and delving into them whenever she had time. Through continuous reading and study, she gradually mastered scientific feed formulation, fish rearing, and fish disease prevention and control. In the spring of 1997, in order to learn advanced aquaculture technology, she raised more than 10,000 yuan and went to Guangzhou to learn from experience. During more than ten days in Guangzhou, she not only learned advanced aquaculture, fish breeding, and fish disease prevention and control techniques from both north and south, but also felt the enterprising and constantly innovative spirit of the people of Guangzhou.

Expanding the aquaculture area and enlarging the scale of farming was what Chen Xiaolan thought about, and it was also what she did. Through several years of capital accumulation, Chen Xiaolan invested a large amount of funds in 2004. On the basis of newly built fish ponds, she bought several abandoned ponds and renovated them, expanding the aquaculture area to more than 280 mu. Over the years, whenever she had the chance, she often went to the mainland to study and exchange ideas, make many friends, and bring back local new varieties and new technologies. As her experience and knowledge steadily grew, the introduced new varieties, through continuous exploration and improvement and careful management, achieved repeated success in trials. In 2012, Chen Xiaolan's 280 mu of fish ponds were used for polyculture. The farm produced 27 tons of crucian carp, 10 tons of common carp, 36 tons of silver carp, 110 tons of grass carp, 40 tons of Wuchang bream, 22 tons of yellow catfish, and 0.6 tons of whiteleg shrimp per year, with an annual output of 243 tons, an output value of 3.4 million yuan, and a net profit of 920,000 yuan.

In recent years, the aquatic product market has not been very prosperous. On the basis of her previous aquaculture varieties, Chen Xiaolan added projects such as loach farming, bringing the number of aquaculture varieties to more than 30. With the business strategy of "having what others do not have, and being refined in what others have," she calmly responded, and among the hundreds of aquaculture farmers in Beiquan Town, Shihezi General Farm, her fish output, output value, and profit still stood out above the rest.

In order to lead more aquaculture farmers onto the road to prosperity together, in 2014 Chen Xiaolan took the lead in registering and establishing the Beiquan Town Tianyu Aquaculture Cooperative. She recommended good technologies and good varieties that had been tested and put into practice to the farmers, and passed on her own personal experiences and lessons to others. Today, driven by Chen Xiaolan, the members of the Tianyu Aquaculture Cooperative have grown to 32 households, driving employment for 38 people.