Rice paddy fish farming, led by a post-90s entrepreneur in Taining, Fujian

Huang Shengwang, a young man born in the 1990s from Lingxia Village, Xinqiao Township, Taining County, has not been involved in aquaculture for long, but he has already made quite a name for himself. Farmers raising rice paddy fish in the surrounding areas come to him whenever they have a problem.

Recently, when the reporter found Huang Shengwang, he was gathered with several villagers around a pool, using bowls to scoop out newly hatched carp fry from the pool. Villagers who had made appointments that day came to pick up their orders.

This pool is a carp hatching pool. Huang Shengwang said that unlike traditional still-water hatching, this pool uses flowing-water hatching, which offers large hatching capacity, high speed, short time, a high fertilization rate, a high hatching rate and a high survival rate. One batch can hatch two to three million fry, which sell for four to five thousand yuan.

Villager Huang Liangping told the reporter that in the second half of last year, Huang Shengwang successfully bred carp fry, which provided great convenience for the villagers raising rice paddy fish. The fry taken from here and put into the fields can grow to the size of a thumb in about a month, growing very quickly.

After graduating in 2013 from Qilu University of Technology in Shandong with a degree in Chemical Engineering and Technology, Huang found a well-paid job in his field in Ningbo. After half a year of work, he found that the nine-to-five life did not suit him. He had grown up in the countryside, where his ancestors had all raised fish, and he loved this free and easy life. Now, with few people and plenty of land in the countryside, he began to think about starting his own business.

So he traveled around Fuzhou, Ningde, Ningbo and other places, spending two years working while quietly learning aquaculture techniques. In June 2015, he returned home and used his savings from working to contract and transfer more than 20 mu of land, and began farming carp, crayfish, loach and other aquatic products.

Huang Shengwang cultivates his own fish fry, and his farming feed is also “different from others”: he does not use artificial feed, but instead uses artificially cultivated bloodworms and algae as feed, which greatly reduces costs and lessens farming risks.

Next, Huang Shengwang plans to develop a rice paddy fish farming cooperative, providing surrounding farmers with high-quality fry, offering farming techniques free of charge, buying back adult fish and guaranteeing sales channels, so that his fellow villagers can together realize the dream of becoming prosperous through rice paddy fish farming.