A farmer fulfilled his fellow villagers' dream of prosperity through aquaculture

In early summer, the fishing ground of Caoqiao Town in Xinyi City, located by the shore of Luoma Lake, is shaded by green trees. After noon on May 22, bursts of laughter kept coming from farmer Zhu Quanyun's Quanyun Ecological Aquaculture Base, breaking the tranquility of Luoma Lake.

"Last year the aquaculture market wasn't too good, but unexpectedly each household still got a surplus share of over 100,000 yuan. We thought we'd be lucky just to break even!" Old Zhu continued, "This year we've put all 1,000 mu of fish ponds into use to farm grass carp, silver carp and other aquatic products. I hope everyone will do their best so we can have an even better harvest next year." As soon as Zhu Quanyun finished speaking, the dozen or so farmers sitting in the room all laughed happily and chimed in, "Good!"

When it comes to Zhu Quanyun, the villagers at the ecological aquaculture base all give him a thumbs-up and call him the "leader in getting rich." More than 10 years ago, Old Zhu confidently assured the villagers that aquaculture could yield over 10,000 yuan per mu. Amid the villagers' skepticism, a grand dream of prosperity was "fulfilled" by this shrewd, capable, honest, reliable and charitable Old Zhu.

Determined to "fulfill" the villagers' dream of prosperity

After years of unremitting effort, relying on his ability to endure hardship and his willingness to use his head, he accumulated rich experience in aquaculture. When it came to aquaculture, Old Zhu could talk about it with great familiarity and eloquence, and his own life got better with each passing day. But the impoverished villagers around him left a bad taste in Old Zhu's heart. "I can't bear to see the villagers remain so poor. I must make use of national policies to lead everyone out of poverty and toward prosperity," Old Zhu said with some excitement. In 2002, he organized 10 nearby villagers to establish the Xinyi City Quanyun Aquaculture Cooperative, pooling all their fish ponds together, unifying the breeding varieties of aquatic products, unified purchasing of production materials, unified sales, and dividing dividends according to shares, reducing the costs and risks of scattered farming and leading everyone onto the broad road to prosperity.

Leading everyone to explore the path to prosperity

The fishing ground of Caoqiao Town in Xinyi City, known as the "village of aquatic products," sends tens of thousands of tons of aquatic products to all parts of the country every year. Zhu Quanyun seized the business opportunity back then, believing that silver carp, soft-shelled turtle and grass carp were very popular in the market. "So we convened a representative meeting of cooperative members and decided to farm these aquatic products. Everyone agreed, and we hired relevant experts from universities and the fisheries bureau as technical consultants for the cooperative," Old Zhu introduced.

Just like that, the Quanyun Ecological Aquaculture Base was quickly built and put into production. Starting in 2004, the annual income of each member household was around 20,000 yuan. Everyone was highly motivated and saw hope in escaping poverty and achieving prosperity. "But since 2011, as production costs, especially fish pond maintenance costs, rose year by year, with fish pond maintenance costs at their highest approaching more than 500,000 yuan, profits declined year by year, and there were even losses. The villagers' enthusiasm was affected, and some even wanted to withdraw from the cooperative," Old Zhu said helplessly.

But Old Zhu did not give up. While comforting the villagers, he searched everywhere for a "prescription." In the first half of 2013, Old Zhu invited relevant aquaculture experts from Nanjing Agricultural University to "take the pulse" on site, and they wrote a "prescription": the most fundamental solution to reducing aquaculture costs was to increase investment and improve the base's supporting infrastructure. The prescription was there, but Old Zhu hesitated. According to a preliminary estimate, more than 2 million yuan would be needed to solve the problem. The cooperative did not have that much money, so what could be done? As more and more members proposed withdrawing from the cooperative, Old Zhu was at his wit's end.

One day in April 2013, Old Zhu was inspecting the fish ponds when suddenly the phone rang. "The village Party secretary called me and said the leaders of the Xinyi City Agricultural Development Bureau were looking for me and said they could solve the problems I was facing. I was so happy at the time and ran quickly to the village Party secretary's home," Old Zhu said excitedly. "The leaders of the Xinyi City Agricultural Development Bureau introduced in detail the relevant policies for supporting the industrialization of agricultural development, and made our cooperative a key support target for the 2013 industrialization incremental project, helping me upgrade the fish pond supporting infrastructure."

After a year of unremitting effort, the Quanyun Ecological Aquaculture Base not only had complete supporting infrastructure and significantly improved benefits, but also built a well-known small leisure fishing village, with people coming here to visit every day. The results were beyond expectations: the quality and yield of the aquatic products were both very good. Using the customer resources accumulated over many years in business, the products were quickly sold to the major cities of Nanjing, Shanghai and Xuzhou. In 2015, the cooperative's income reached more than 10 million yuan. Old Zhu distributed dividends to everyone and planned how to once again raise the villagers' enthusiasm and achieve a good harvest in 2016, which led to the scene at the beginning.

"Internet Plus" gives aquaculture wings to soar

This year, while actively mobilizing the villagers, Old Zhu, who is around 50, also likes to "ponder," and actually transformed from a layman in "Internet Plus" into a local expert in the "cloud." Whenever he hears of an "Internet Plus" agricultural expert somewhere, he is sure to visit. The villagers often teasingly call him "Cloud Brother" for his obsession with "Internet Plus" aquaculture. When he accidentally heard that there were experts at Nanjing Agricultural University researching "Internet Plus" agriculture, he decided to use "Internet Plus" to send aquaculture to the "cloud." Old Zhu said proudly, "According to the suggestion of Professor Yu Degui of Nanjing Agricultural University, the aerators were modified. On the one hand, based on the oxygen content of the fish pond water, they achieve automatic oxygenation, reducing costs by 1% and aquatic product losses by 2%; on the other hand, using 'Internet Plus' as a bridge, these aerators are connected to mobile phone terminals, so that even from a thousand miles away one can check and control the fish pond aerators."

With the help of the Xinyi City Agricultural Development Bureau and the Finance Bureau, the Quanyun Ecological Aquaculture Cooperative successfully applied for the Xinyi City agricultural comprehensive development industrialization operation incremental project and obtained 800,000 yuan in financial subsidy funds, mainly used for newly building fish pond slope protection, cofferdam cement roads, and purchasing electric power facilities, aerators and other equipment and facilities. Through the implementation of the project, not only was the cooperative's comprehensive production capacity improved and the aquaculture base upgraded, but it also helped Old Zhu "fulfill" the villagers' dream of prosperity.