A million koi swim out a road to prosperity in Yuanzhou District, Yichun City
"Most people raise fish for food; I raise fish for viewing." Recently, a reporter came to Tianheng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. in Luobu Village, Zhuting Town, Yuanzhou District. What came into view was a large expanse of cement ponds, neatly divided into more than 30 fish ponds of varying sizes, their surfaces shimmering under the sunlight.
Chen Xian, the company's chairwoman, clapped her hands beside a fish pond. The water rippled in response, and in an instant, thousands of koi surfaced: red, gold, ink-black... The brightly colored koi were like a painting, and the sight of them leaping was quite spectacular. Even more surprising was that as Chen Xian walked forward along the pond bank, the koi followed her, forming a long brocade ribbon in the pond. "To make koi obedient, it all depends on training," Chen Xian explained. Each day at feeding time, she claps along with the feeding and scatters feed while walking, so that the koi form a conditioned reflex.
Koi are not only beautiful in appearance but also friendly with people, bringing joy to people. They are ornamental fish widely loved by people.
Chen Xian, whose ancestral home is Henan, grew up in Xiamen, Fujian, and works in Beijing, yet she is a genuine Yichun daughter-in-law. As a strong woman with considerable business acumen, Chen Xian opened several restaurant chain stores in Beijing and Xiamen, with very good economic returns. When asked why she switched midway from being a first-tier big boss to a rural fish-farming woman, Chen Xian laughed heartily and opened up.
"Raising koi is a bold adventure," Chen Xian said. Chen Xian's family had always been in the ornamental fish business, transporting them from a breeding base in Henan to Beijing for sale, a journey of more than 1,300 km, with about 5 tons of fish per truck, earning the middleman's price difference, with very considerable profits. Chen Xian's husband is from Tiantai Town, Yuanzhou District. As a Yuanzhou daughter-in-law, Chen Xian keenly realized: Yichun is more than 1,500 km from Beijing, and if koi were farmed on a large scale in Yichun, it would certainly succeed too. "Yichun has obvious locational advantages and very convenient transportation, and the water source is natural karst cave spring water, with water quality that is almost zero-pollution, much better than pumped groundwater in places like Henan, while the land rent is only about one-tenth that of Henan, Beijing, Xiamen and other places."
No sooner said than done. In 2013, Chen Xian invested more than 25 million yuan in Luobu Village, Zhuting Town, Yuanzhou District, and established Tianheng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. Digging fish ponds, building greenhouses, channeling water sources... Within three months, the company's hardware facilities were gradually completed; Chen Xian also widely recruited talent, hiring koi experts and top professional technical personnel at high salaries, and built a dense sales network. The strong team enhanced the company's soft power.
As living works of art, ornamental fish need not worry about sales. Villa fish ponds, clean ponds in new rural areas, living room displays, fortune-attracting aquariums... More importantly, Yichun and even the whole of Jiangxi had no large-scale koi farm. Chen Xian had originally planned to raise them in Yichun and sell them in Beijing, but market demand gave her a big surprise. In July 2015, Tianheng Agriculture's ornamental fish products went on sale, and the sales network quickly covered the market. Besides local sales, orders came pouring in from Pingxiang, Changsha, Nanchang, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other places. "To this day, not a single one of my fish has been sold to Beijing; they are all snapped up in surrounding areas," Chen Xian said with a smile. In just half a year, the orders Chen Xian received amounted to about 20 million yuan, and the momentum of large-scale koi farming development was very strong.
Chen Xian's entire farming scale is about more than 500 mu, with a total of nearly one million fish, basically covering the cold-water fish series. Laypeople watch the excitement, while experts look for the finer points; koi with different patterns differ greatly in price. Chen Xian told the reporter that koi with a solid patch of red or a solid patch of yellow are sold by weight, at about 10 yuan per jin; koi with beautiful and unique patterns are sold by the fish, with each fish selling for several thousand yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan. A valuable variety like "Hongyun Dangtou" can be worth several hundred thousand yuan, enough to pay for a car. However, it may appear only once in tens of thousands of fish, and only a handful of premium koi are produced each year. For this reason, Tianheng Agriculture must screen the koi at least 5 times and raise them in separate ponds according to their patterns and body shapes.
Chen Xian's million koi swim joyfully in the fish ponds, swimming vividly and lively, and also swimming out for her a splendid road to prosperity.