Northeastern young man starts a crab farming business, driving the whole town to increase income and become prosperous

"When the autumn wind rises, crab legs itch. When chrysanthemums bloom, crabs are sought after." On October 12, in Laoweng Town, Changning County, at Yibin's largest river crab farming base, one after another large Chinese mitten crabs 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 were boxed and sold to Luzhou, Zigong and other markets in southern Sichuan. "More than 10,000 kg have been sold so far, and during the National Day holiday, an average of nearly 500 kg could be sold each day." Facing the booming sales, Wang Hongtao, who came from the Northeast to Yibin to start a business, said bluntly that he had "chosen the right place."

Why did Wang Hongtao, who originally ran a chemical plant in the Northeast, travel thousands of miles 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 natural environment of clear mountains and waters. "The unique innate conditions moved me to develop ecological agriculture locally." In early 2014, Wang Hongtao introduced crab seedlings from his hometown in Liaoning and used corn as feed to farm Chinese mitten crabs.

In order to let the Chinese mitten crabs "settle down" in Yibin, the local government made Wang Hongtao's river crab farming base a key supported project and funded the repair 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 stage of farming, Wang Hongtao ran into this worry. For this reason, the Changning County Bureau of Economic and Commercial Informationization and Science and Technology dispatched professional technicians to work with Wang Hongtao to find a solution. "After repeated experiments, we found that using co-culture technology of rice fields, lotus root fields and fish ponds with river crabs not only fattened the crabs, but also increased production and income in 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 crabs, not only did the Chinese mitten crabs achieve a bumper harvest, but the lotus roots also sold for a good price. Wang Hongtao did the math: based on a yield of 1,500 kg of lotus roots per mu, each mu of paddy field could increase income by 5,000 yuan.

Bringing in one entrepreneurial pioneer drives the whole town to increase income and become prosperous. Laoweng Town has established the Hongtao River Crab Farming Association to provide farming technology training to 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 crabs can be sold this year, generating income of more than 10 million yuan.