30,000 farming households in Lingshan County, Guangxi, find prosperity through snake farming
On March 9, Peng Jinqian, a villager from Taiping Village, Taiping Town, Lingshan County, lifted the cotton quilt in the center of his snake house, and more than 10 cobras suddenly raised their bodies and hissed at him.
He put down the feed and carefully cleaned up the droppings for these fearsome creatures. "I have to clean their 'house' every day. Once they get familiar with you, they won't bite people on their own initiative," Peng Jinqian said.
Peng Jinqian has been farming snakes for nearly 10 years and is a major snake farmer locally. From a few dozen at the beginning to several thousand now, snake farming has changed his life and set him on the road to prosperity. Not only that, he has also led more than 50 farming households in the village to farm snakes.
Lingshan County is the "Home of Snake Farming in China," and Peng Jinqian's success reflects the rapid development of Lingshan's snake farming industry. Data provided by the local forestry department show that during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, Lingshan farmed a cumulative total of 10.02 million cobras, rat snakes and others, with total revenue of about 2.134 billion yuan, and 4,500 households with more than 30,000 people in the county escaped poverty and became prosperous through snake farming.
In order to promote the development of the snake farming industry, Lingshan established a leading group for the special industry of artificial breeding of snakes, headed by the county Party secretary and county mayor, and formulated rules and regulations such as the "Lingshan County Regulations on the Management of Artificial Snake Farming," the "Lingshan County Regulations on the Management of Snake Product Transportation," and the "Lingshan County Emergency Plan for Wildlife Monitoring and Control." At present, the county has developed 92 snake breeding farms, including 10 snake farming professional cooperatives, with a total of 6,800 farming households farming snakes. The county's snake inventory has reached more than 2 million, with annual revenue of about 426 million yuan. In addition to local farmers breeding snakes, more than 500 farmers from 24 provinces including Hunan, Sichuan and Fujian have come to Lingshan to study and train in snake farming technology, extending Lingshan's snake farming technology across the country. In addition, Lingshan is the only snake-farming county that cultivates snake breeds. Ten excellent snake breeds selected by the county, such as "Longxuan Cobra" and "Jinlong Cobra," have been promoted to 15 provinces across the country.