Soft-shelled turtle farming model worker Wu Guohui comes from Nanfeng, Fuzhou, Jiangxi
Recently, a special correspondent of the Evening News came to the Tianpeng soft-shelled turtle farming base in Xiayang Village, Taihe Town, Nanfeng County, where Wu Guohui, a large-scale soft-shelled turtle farmer, was teaching soft-shelled turtle farming techniques in a greenhouse. "The water depth of juvenile soft-shelled turtle ponds should be kept between 0.3 m and 0.4 m, and the water should be changed once every 3 days. The water color is best when it is green. A small amount of green plants such as water hyacinth can be placed in the water to improve water quality, so that the soft-shelled turtle hatchlings can hide from each other and avoid injuring one another," Wu Guohui told the farmers who came to learn from him.
Having heard that Wu Guohui, by returning to his hometown to farm soft-shelled turtles, had become the well-known "Soft-shelled Turtle King" of Xiayang Village, Taihe Town, Nanfeng County, the Evening News special correspondent decided to conduct an exclusive interview with him. Wu Guohui was born in May 1987 in Meixi Village, Shishan Town, Nanfeng County. To reduce the burden on his parents, he went alone to Shenzhen to work at the age of 15. Because he was young and it was hard to find work, Wu Guohui first apprenticed as a carpenter, attended various carpentry training classes, and obtained an intermediate qualification in hand carpentry. Later, he went to a lighting company in Dongguan to serve as an LED lighting salesperson and sales supervisor. After struggling away from home for 7 years and saving some money, Wu Guohui wanted to use his youth to build a career elsewhere and bring honor to his family. So Wu Guohui told his family about his idea of farming soft-shelled turtles, and soon received their agreement.
In 2009, with the support of his family, relatives and friends, Wu Guohui began his path in soft-shelled turtle farming. He successively went to the main soft-shelled turtle production areas in Zhejiang and Guangdong to study and investigate, transferred 260 mu of land in Wangtian Village, Baishe Town, and built his first soft-shelled turtle farm to develop soft-shelled turtle production. From site planning and design to land excavation and pond digging, pond clearing, seedling selection and stocking, feeding management, and market sales, Wu Guohui did everything himself. That year, Wu Guohui not only earned back his costs in soft-shelled turtle farming, but also made a profit of more than 2 million yuan, earning the "first bucket of gold" in his life.
In the first half of 2011, Wu Guohui invested more than 17 million yuan and went to Zhejiang Hangzhou Xiaoshan Tianfu Biotechnology Co., Ltd. to purchase 150,000 second-generation purebred Japanese strain Chinese soft-shelled turtles. Relying on the farming techniques he had accumulated over many years, he first conducted experiments at his own farm, and the experiments succeeded, yielding a net profit of more than 10 million yuan that year.
After becoming rich, Wu Guohui did not forget the farmers around him who had once supported and helped him, and decided to lead the farmers to work together. In 2012, Wu Guohui registered and established Jiangxi Tianpeng Ecological Agriculture Co., Ltd., adopting a production and operation method of unified supply of seedlings, unified technical guidance, and unified purchase of products. Through the "company + improved breeding base + farmers" model, he led 430 households in Taihe Town to engage in the production of breeding soft-shelled turtles, breeding eggs, breeding soft-shelled turtles and commercial soft-shelled turtles, increasing farmers' average annual income per household by more than 70,000 yuan. At present, Wu Guohui's company has a farming area of more than 2,000 mu, employs 110 migrant workers, sells 8 million soft-shelled turtle eggs, 100,000 kg of breeding soft-shelled turtles, and 1 million kg of commercial soft-shelled turtles annually, with an annual output value of more than 80 million yuan. The improved soft-shelled turtle breeds have basically reached the construction standards for a provincial-level aquatic original and improved breed farm, becoming the most influential Chinese soft-shelled turtle farming base in our province.
In May 2015, Wu Guohui was rated as a model worker of Jiangxi Province. In April 2016, he was elected as the first president of the Nanfeng County Turtle and Soft-shelled Turtle Industry Association. Speaking of his future plans, Wu Guohui said that the company's next step will be to build a one-stop soft-shelled turtle industry chain integrating the farming and selective breeding of improved soft-shelled turtle varieties, greenhouse farming, ecologically healthy commercial soft-shelled turtle farming, reserve parent soft-shelled turtle cultivation, and commercial soft-shelled turtle sales.