The entrepreneurial story of Wang Yiwen, the first person to farm sturgeon in Quzhou

    He is one of the founders of overwintering warm-water and tropical fish fry (tilapia, freshwater pomfret) in Quzhou City, and he is also the earliest sturgeon farmer in Quzhou City. He is a well-known figure in Quzhou's aquaculture circles - Wang Yiwen, president of the Kecheng District Garden Sturgeon Professional Cooperative. Over more than 20 years, Wang Yiwen has become prosperous by farming tilapia, freshwater pomfret and sturgeon, and has also driven local people to increase their income, becoming a pioneer entrepreneur in the city's aquaculture industry.

Wang Yiwen inspecting sturgeon farming conditions at the fishery. 

Contracting a fish fry farm and losing 600,000 yuan

The 44-year-old Wang Yiwen is short in stature. Although only 151 cm tall, he is a well-known figure in Quzhou's aquaculture circles. Local farmers who have dealt with him all give a thumbs-up and say: "He is rather short, but he is extremely skilled at fish farming." "I have suffered a lot because of my short stature." On August 21, at Wang Yiwen's sturgeon farm, he told this reporter about his entrepreneurial experience. From primary school to high school, Wang Yiwen's academic performance was always among the best. "I graduated from Quzhou No. 2 Middle School in 1983. That year I had already reached the undergraduate admission line in the college entrance examination, but because of my height, I was not admitted." The next year, Wang Yiwen chose to repeat his studies, and as a result his college entrance examination score exceeded the key university admission line by 30 points. Also because of his height, he was ultimately admitted to Zhejiang Fisheries College.

In 1986, after graduating from junior college, Wang Yiwen was assigned to the Quzhou State-owned Fish Fry Farm. In less than a few years of work, Wang Yiwen, an outstanding top student from a fisheries college, became the farm director. That year he was only 28 years old. "After I became farm director, in 1995 the Chenjia branch of the fish fry farm was contracted out externally. Because no one would contract it, I had to contract it myself." Wang Yiwen recalled that everyone's thinking was especially good at that time. Originally, if it had been contracted to someone else, the rent would have been only 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a year. Because he himself was the farm director, from the perspective of generating income for the fish fry farm, the rent for his contract was 100,000 yuan. He had thought that raising fish fry would make big money, but unexpectedly that year, because of water source pollution, all the fish fry died, and the loss reached 600,000 yuan. "This was the first major setback in my life." With a pile of debt, Wang Yiwen felt enormous pressure. If these losses were not recovered, the fish fry farm would face the danger of disbanding.

Warm flowing water fish farming enriches villagers

Sometimes people really need a bit of spirit. Wang Yiwen decided to get back up from where he had fallen. He voluntarily shouldered the losses, asked higher authorities for three years of leave without pay, and vowed to repay the debt. Forced by this, Wang Yiwen thus embarked on the path of fish farming with warm flowing water. In 1996, Wang Yiwen borrowed 30,000 yuan from relatives and, in Chenjia Village of the former Huayuan Township, used the cooling water from the Juhua Thermal Power Plant, channeled it into fish ponds through canals, and started "overwintering and stock preservation" farming of tilapia and freshwater pomfret. After a year of hard work, Wang Yiwen sold 80,000 yuan worth of tilapia, freshwater pomfret and freshwater pearlspot, and after deducting costs, made a net profit of 50,000 yuan.

Wang Yiwen said that at the beginning the area for warm flowing water fish farming was only 8 mu, and now it has expanded to 60 mu, with sales increasing year after year, all sold to various places in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, Jiangxi and Zhejiang. Using warm flowing water for fish farming not only allowed him to pay off his debts, but also made him a famous "fish farming king" in our city. Seeing that using warm flowing water for fish farming could make money, many villagers in Chenjia Village also followed suit and began raising tilapia and freshwater pomfret. Whenever farmers encountered technical problems in farming, Wang Yiwen taught them without reservation. Villager Lei Zhenliang began raising tilapia in 1998, and now has seven or eight mu of fish ponds, with annual net income exceeding 100,000 yuan. Over the years, Wang Yiwen has led more than 10 farming households in Chenjia Village onto the road to prosperity through warm flowing water fish farming.

Failure in cold-water rainbow trout farming, then switching to sturgeon farming and becoming rich

In 2002, Wang Yiwen built a fishery in Gangyao Village, Huayuan Subdistrict, Kecheng District, and began farming cold-water fish using the high-quality stream water of Wuxi River. "At first I raised rainbow trout, but because the water temperature was rather high in June and July, more than 100,000 rainbow trout died." Wang Yiwen said that rainbow trout are quite difficult to raise. They require a maximum water temperature below 22°C, but the fishery's summer water temperature stays below 28°C, generally around 25°C. Undaunted by failure, Wang Yiwen went to the Fangshan sturgeon farming base of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences in Beijing to investigate, and found that the precious sturgeon has farming advantages such as large individual size, fast growth, strong adaptability and few diseases, and that sturgeon is a sub-cold-water fish. As long as the summer water temperature stays below 28°C, large-scale deaths generally will not occur. "I went twice in succession. In 2004, I converted about 10 rainbow trout breeding ponds into sturgeon farming sites and began trial farming of sturgeon." Afterward, he hired 4 sturgeon farming technicians from Sichuan and Hubei and jointly raised sturgeon with them in the form of shares. "In June of that year we stocked 6,000 sturgeon about 10 cm long, with 2,000 each of three varieties: Siberian sturgeon, hybrid sturgeon and Sterlet sturgeon." Wang Yiwen said that after a year and a half of rearing, he found that hybrid sturgeon and Siberian sturgeon were more adapted to the water quality and climate environment of our city. "These sturgeon began to be supplied to the market after growing to 0.65 kg, selling for 50 yuan per kg, and a total of 200,000 yuan was sold." With the success of sturgeon farming, Wang Yiwen became even more confident. He also led nearby farmers to become rich by raising sturgeon. In 2007, he also started farming sturgeon fry. Through careful cultivation, that year he sold 400,000 sturgeon fry at a price of 4 to 5 yuan each.