Yellow mealworms: low investment and a good market, a great path for farmers to get rich
A great path for farmers to get rich
“I started raising yellow mealworms in March 2011, with 1000 boxes, and I have earned 20,000 yuan so far. Next, I plan to give up the big room to the yellow mealworms and raise 2000 boxes. Raising yellow mealworms does not require much capital; rotten vegetable leaves, wheat bran, fruit peels, they eat anything. Keeping the insects at home does not get in the way of my work at the Yongfa Breeding Cooperative, which brings in another 1000-plus yuan a month.” On January 28, in Shanan Dongcun, Sha Town, Dongchangfu District, Liaocheng City, Zhang Qiuying said happily.
In the side room of Zhang Qiuying's home, layers of wooden racks were lined up, with box after box of yellow mealworms placed on them. No stove was lit in the room, and it was very cold, but in the wheat bran, dense swarms of yellow mealworms were wriggling. The reporter picked one up and placed it in the palm, and its crawling made the palm tingle. “These things are really tough, they rarely get sick, and they are so easy to raise! I owe my prosperity to brother Wang Cunxiu.” Zhang Qiuying said gratefully.
25-year-old Wang Cunxiu is the head of the Yongfa Breeding Cooperative and lives in Huangchongmiao Village, Sha Town. After returning from working in Shenzhen, he raised chickens and did waste plastic recycling and processing, and lost money on both. Later, after investigating and finding that yellow mealworm farming had low investment and broad market prospects, he began raising yellow mealworms, and after recouping his costs that year, he made a net profit of 10,000 yuan.
Because market demand is large, in February last year, Wang Cunxiu initiated the establishment of the Yongfa Breeding Cooperative, which has driven 136 farming households to raise yellow mealworms. The cooperative implements unified seed supply, unified technical guidance, and unified recovery and sales. The cooperative produces more than 20,000 jin of fresh worms each month. Large-scale farmers can produce more than 2000 jin of worms a month, and each farming household earns an average of 30,000 yuan a year.
“Next, some companies want to extract biodiesel from yellow mealworms, so the market demand for yellow mealworms will become impossible to estimate.” Wang Cunxiu said: “Raising chickens and pigs requires a high level of technical expertise and good epidemic prevention work; with the slightest carelessness, one disease may kill them all. Raising yellow mealworms requires no technical expertise, and they will not freeze to death even at minus 15 degrees. The returns are considerable, and it is a great path for farmers to get rich.” He introduced that fresh worms cost 5 yuan per jin and are the best feed for raising poultry, birds, turtles, and bullfrogs, and are sold to Henan, Hebei, Beijing, and other places. Dried worms cost about 36,000 yuan per ton and are sold to Tianjin and other places to extract protein powder, food additives, and so on.
Eating 600,000 jin of rotten vegetables a year
On the eve of the Spring Festival, Wang Cunxiu collected another cart of rotten cabbage, at 1 mao per jin.
“Now cabbage, once trimmed clean, costs only a few fen per jin. When vegetables are cheap and unsalable, some farmers just dump them in the fields and abandon them, and rotting easily breeds pests and diseases. But rotten vegetables are good feed for yellow mealworms; rotten cucumbers, rotten potatoes, rotten summer squash, yellow mealworms eat them all without hesitation. Over the past year, our cooperative has collected 600,000 jin of rotten vegetables, at prices ranging from a few fen to a few mao per jin, reducing some losses for vegetable farmers.” Wang Cunxiu said.
According to reports, based on one farming household producing 1500 jin of worms a month, these worms consume 7500 jin of rotten vegetables. Wang Cunxiu has already joined with relevant departments to purchase 100,000 jin of rotten cabbage from vegetable farmers.
Liu Shouzhu, associate professor in the Department of Plant Protection of the College of Agriculture at Liaocheng University, has studied yellow mealworms for many years. He introduced: “The ecological benefits of raising yellow mealworms are obvious. Yellow mealworms are a 'transfer station for the flow of nutrients'; they can purify the environment, eat organic waste such as rotten vegetable leaves and kitchen waste, and convert it into high-quality protein. The insect feces can be used as feed or fertilizer, forming a virtuous agricultural cycle. Vegetables rotting in the fields will create sources of disease and bring pests and diseases such as nematodes and aphids. Feeding rotten vegetables to yellow mealworms can reduce the chance of pests and diseases accumulating in the fields, and the incidence of crop diseases next year can also be correspondingly reduced.”
“Some time ago, when I went to Tai'an for an investigation, at the Organic Waste Disposal Center of Shandong Agricultural University I saw more than a dozen garbage bins printed with the words Taishan Sanitation.” Wang Cunxiu said. The university cooperates with the Tai'an Sanitation Department, using kitchen waste collected by the sanitation department to feed yellow mealworms. About 3000 to 4000 boxes of yellow mealworms can eat 2 to 5 tons of kitchen waste in about a day.
“At present, most domestic waste is disposed of by landfill, of which organic waste accounts for 70 to 80 percent. Raising yellow mealworms provides a new way to handle waste. If the model of raising insects to eat waste can be promoted, then I believe the problem of domestic waste treatment can basically be solved in the future.” Liu Shouzhu said.
Large market demand
“The output of insects on Earth is second only to plants, and it is the only resource that has not yet been developed. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization calls on 'meat eaters' to switch to eating insects, and is considering promoting insect food to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Liu Shouzhu believes that yellow mealworms have large market demand and are the next blue ocean for the breeding industry.
Liu Shouzhu introduced that as environmental, resource, and population problems become more and more prominent, protein shortage has become a global problem, and yellow mealworms are a source of high-quality protein. On the one hand, they can provide high-quality protein for humans; on the other hand, they can be used as high-quality feed for animal husbandry. As a food, yellow mealworms rank first among various animals and plants in nutritional content, and are rich in protein, amino acids, and vitamins. Moreover, no drugs are used at all during the breeding process, so they are very safe. At present, many people still do not accept them as food. Liu Shouzhu once set out fried yellow mealworms on the Liaocheng University campus for students to taste; many people did not dare to eat them, but after eating them, they all exclaimed that they were delicious.