Shandong Binzhou sea cucumber farming crosses the river by feeling the stones and gradually takes shape

Liu Baohua: A pioneer of private marine aquaculture

"The sea cucumbers we farm will leave the ponds around this year's National Day. You could say this is the first time sea cucumbers farmed by Binzhou itself have gone on the market on a large scale." As he said this, Liu Baohua sounded somewhat proud.

As a witness to development almost in step with marine aquaculture in Wudi County, 45-year-old Liu Baohua has grown from an initial self-employed shrimp farmer into vice chairman of Haicheng Enterprise Group, with total assets of over 100 million yuan, and his main energy is still mainly devoted to marine aquaculture.

Wudi County borders the Bohai Sea, and coastal villagers have a long history of using seawater for aquaculture. As early as the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period, some people had already built ponds with dams in riversides and shoals, using artificial seedling collection to farm clams, blood cockles and the like. After the founding of the People's Republic, coastal fishermen relied on the natural environment, using salt-drying reservoirs and tidal creeks and adopting artificial seedling intake to farm clams, mullet, sea bass, swimming crabs, blood cockles and so on, but the farming returns were poor.

Marine aquaculture in Wudi County truly took shape after 1985, when the main farmed species was Chinese white shrimp. Speaking of the earliest marine aquaculture, Liu Baohua said it was actually quite accidental. In 1987, Liu Baohua and his older brother bought several bulldozers and looked around for projects. At that time many people from Northeast China contracted mudflats in the county's Chengkou Town to farm shrimp, and Liu Baohua was mainly responsible for bulldozing shrimp ponds for them. After doing this for a while, Liu Baohua discovered that shrimp farming was quite profitable and did not require much skill. After discussion, Liu Baohua and his older brother contracted mudflats and dug shrimp ponds together, and just like that the two brothers became the first group of large-scale marine aquaculture farmers in Wudi County.

"At the start we farmed Chinese white shrimp. At that time farming was really easy to do, there were no major diseases, it did not require much skill, sales were quite good, and making money was easy," Liu Baohua said. The good times did not last long. Around 1992, viral shrimp disease broke out across large areas nationwide, and farmers in Wudi County, including Liu Baohua, were not spared, suffering heavy losses.

Learning from painful experience, because Chinese white shrimp had poor disease resistance and were not easy to transport, Liu Baohua decided to change the farmed species. After that, he set several "firsts" in the local marine aquaculture industry. He was the first locally to introduce Japanese tiger shrimp, which have strong disease resistance. After three years of successful farming, again because of disease, Liu Baohua prepared to trial a new species. In 1997, Liu Baohua was again the first to introduce Pacific white shrimp, which have stronger disease resistance, tolerate high temperatures and salinity, and adapt well to water quality, and he farmed them successfully; he was also the first to sell Pacific white shrimp in the Jinan and Tianjin markets. "At that time the market did not recognize them at all, because what people usually saw then were dead shrimp, and they had never seen fresh live sea shrimp. The first time I brought 70 jin of Pacific white shrimp to the Jinan market to sell, it took me a whole day to sell them all," Liu Baohua said. "As Pacific white shrimp spread across the country, the market gradually began to accept them. Even now, Pacific white shrimp are still the main shrimp species in national sea shrimp farming, far ahead of other species."

This autumn, Binzhou-produced sea cucumbers will go on the market for the first time

Liu Baohua is not a man easily satisfied. While farming shrimp, he also actively explored diversified farming. "Besides shrimp farming, the first thing I tried was crab farming. From the mid-1990s I began farming and breeding seedlings of swimming crabs, and I am still doing it now," Liu Baohua said.

Haicheng Group's experimental sea cucumber farming likewise put it at the forefront in Wudi County. In 2007, Haicheng Group invested in renovating 100 mu of sea cucumber farming ponds, and all survived. That trial farming was entirely a matter of crossing the river by feeling the stones. With no technology, no reference materials, and no understanding of management, Haicheng's sea cucumber output was not high and the returns were poor. Because Haicheng did not harvest the sea cucumbers in time after they matured, and then high temperatures hit, most of this batch of sea cucumbers ultimately died in the ponds.

Although no profit was seen, the experience of keeping them alive still gave Liu Baohua enough confidence: sea cucumbers could likewise be farmed in Binzhou's seawater. "In Shandong and neighboring provinces and cities, those with successful sea cucumber farming experience are mainly Dalian in Liaoning and our own Jiaodong region in Shandong. The technology is in their hands, and it is also relatively confidential, since after all their experience was bought through failure and loss," Liu Baohua said.

Starting in 2010, Liu Baohua and his enterprise entered sea cucumber farming for the second time. This time he cooperated with an enterprise in Jiaodong and adopted the other party's technology and methods. "Sea cucumber farming has very high requirements for objective conditions. The clarity, salinity and temperature of seawater all have standards. If the standards are not met, farming will not succeed," Liu Baohua explained. "Sea cucumbers are attached-growth organisms, so whether for seedling rearing or farming, reefs need to be built to create a suitable environment. The subsequent salinity control and temperature regulation also determine whether farming succeeds."

At present, Haicheng's sea cucumber seedling rearing has succeeded, and the seedlings also sell well in surrounding areas. The largest ones in the farming ponds now already weigh over three liang, and they will go on the market this autumn.

Besides sea cucumbers, Haicheng's valuable farmed fish species, the tongue sole, has also been bred successfully and is expected to go on the market next year, and industrial farming of turbot is also in planning and design. "From the earliest shrimp farming to today's farming of precious marine products, our pace has kept step with Wudi's marine aquaculture," Liu Baohua said.