A post-80s farmer raises Taiwan loach, earning 50,000 yuan per mu

In Lengshuitan District, a great post-80s partnership between Deng Yihu and Ma Xuesong gave up their original jobs to focus on researching aquaculture, driving local people out of poverty and toward prosperity.

In 2013, crop farming was pursued enthusiastically by many entrepreneurs. Deng Yihu resolutely gave up his job in the computer IT industry and came to Maping Agricultural Development Zone to start a business. After some research, full of drive, he decided to go into rare cultivation, growing black tiger [Kadsura coccinea], August melon [Holboellia latifolia], September yellow [Stauntonia hexaphylla] and so on, and put all his savings and effort into the planting business. However, due to a lack of technology and the influence of the soil quality, the harvest was not ideal, which made the villagers who had planned to partner with him hesitate and back off.

To get out of the predicament, in September 2015, Deng Yihu, taking local conditions into account, found a new path in aquaculture. So he looked for partners through the internet and met Ma Xuesong, a specialized breeding farmer from Shuangpai County. Ma Xuesong had originally been a worker employed elsewhere. The two hit it off immediately and started loach farming together, investing in and establishing the Yihe Loach Breeding Cooperative. Deng Yihu said: "Our farming is divided into several big parts, there are fry, there is seedling rearing, and there is raising market fish. Anyway, at that time our investment in these three or four parts reached more than 600,000 yuan."

After the cooperative was established, Deng Yihu and Ma Xuesong considered that sales channels and technology were the urgent priorities. Relying on a tenacious spirit of study, they constantly consulted materials and conducted experiments, and discovered the techniques for farming a "special" loach——Taiwan loach. Developing loach farming was inseparable from farmland, so Deng Yihu transferred 120 mu of paddy fields in the village and dug 50 mu of ponds dedicated to loach farming, beginning the path of farming this special loach. Deng Yihu told reporters: "We also saw this Taiwan loach project through some television promotional materials, for example CCTV-7 and other TV programs, and then I also searched and learned about it online myself, and found that the prospects for loach are very big, and the profits are also fairly considerable." Ma Xuesong, technical director of the Yihe Loach Breeding Cooperative, said: "Take this loach for example, the most technically demanding part is seedling rearing. In the past, many people did not believe that artificial loach fry could succeed, because the survival rate of the reared fry was not high, but we succeeded."

The success of special loach farming attracted the attention of many farmers locally and in surrounding counties and districts. Quite a few villagers converted their abandoned fields into ponds and decided to cooperate with Deng Yihu and Ma Xuesong's cooperative to farm special loach. Ye Rongqing of Duanqiaopu Village, Dong'an County, said: "My family also raises this fish, but we never reach his level; he still raises them better, and the loach he raises is big. I plan to raise this fish, because I pass by here every day and I see that the loach he raises here is especially special." Li Xuerong, a farmer from Liujia Village, Wufengpu, Shaoyang County, said: "As for me, I am a novice farmer, and I also need to see a somewhat bigger base here, so I can see things, that is, these fish and so on, I can see something real and solid, and feel a bit more reassured."

According to Deng Yihu, farming Taiwan loach can produce two batches a year. One batch of fry can reach a yield of about 3,000 jin per mu of land, and after deducting costs it can create a net income of about 50,000 yuan a year. The next step will be to introduce paddlefish according to the situation of the aquatic products market; the price of paddlefish is relatively high now, and the profit is also relatively good. Nowadays, Deng Yihu and Ma Xuesong's cooperative has become the local favorite, not only providing farming technical guidance for visiting farmers, but also supplying fry, market fish and feed, letting ordinary people get a taste of the benefits.