A young man from Northeast China starts a river crab farming business in Yibin, Sichuan, boosting income and prosperity for the whole town

"When the autumn wind rises, crab legs get itchy. When chrysanthemums bloom, crabs are sought after." On October 12, in Laoweng Town, Changning County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province, at Yibin City's largest river crab farming base, one after another Chinese mitten crab with green shells, white bellies, large claws and dense fuzz crawled out of the water. Wang Hongtao, president of the county's Hongtao River Crab Farming Association, was organizing workers to catch crabs, which after being boxed were sold to Luzhou, Zigong and other markets in southern Sichuan. "So far more than 10,000 kg have been sold. During the National Day holiday, we could sell nearly 500 kg on average each day." Faced with the booming sales, Wang Hongtao, who came from Northeast China to start a business in Yibin, said outright that he had "chosen the right place."

Why did Wang Hongtao, who originally ran a chemical plant in Northeast China, travel thousands of li to Yibin to farm crabs? More than a year earlier, while traveling to the Bamboo Sea of southern Sichuan, Wang Hongtao took a fancy to Changning's beautiful natural environment. "The unique natural conditions set my mind on developing ecological agriculture locally." In early 2014, Wang Hongtao introduced crab seedlings from his hometown of Liaoning and, using corn as feed, began farming Chinese mitten crab.

In order to let the Chinese mitten crab "settle down" in Yibin, the local government made Wang Hongtao's river crab farming base a key supported project and funded the renovation of roads, field ridges, water channels and other infrastructure.

"Because they are fed purely on grain, compared with crabs fed on feed, they are smaller and cannot fetch a good price." In the early days of farming, Wang Hongtao ran into this problem. For this reason, the Changning County Bureau of Economic and Commercial Information and Science and Technology sent professional technicians to work with Wang Hongtao to find a solution. "After repeated experiments, we found that using a technique of co-culturing river crabs with rice fields, lotus root fields and fish ponds not only fattened the crabs, but also increased production and income in the lotus root fields and rice fields, achieving multiple benefits at once," said Dong Xiaoli, director of the bureau.

This year, in the 600 mu of fields using co-culture of rice fields, lotus root fields and Chinese mitten crab, not only was there a bumper harvest of Chinese mitten crab, but the lotus root also sold for a good price. Wang Hongtao did some calculations: based on a yield of 1,500 kg of lotus root per mu, each mu of paddy field could increase income by 5,000 yuan.

Bring in one entrepreneurial pioneer and drive the whole town to increase income and become prosperous. Laoweng Town has already established the Hongtao River Crab Farming Association to provide farming technique training for farmers. At present, the town's river crab farming area has reached 1,100 mu, and it is expected that 45,000 kg of Chinese mitten crab can be sold this year, generating income of more than 10 million yuan.