How to Identify Healthy Seafood? Yang Ru-men's Origin Journey Episode 2
Text by Yang Ju-men and Yu Hsin
Lead photo/ On the right, the "white shrimp" that is transparent with a dark tint, and green, are healthy - this is what only pure seawater farming looks like
In the bone-chilling weather, Master A-He still often wades into the water to scoop up clam seedlings and judge how the clams are growing, just to understand their growth. As for me - well, the job of getting into the water for the practicum was handed to Yu Hsin. She was raring to go and had already put on her "frog suit" and was waiting on the bank for the right moment to get in.
At present, the species co-cultured in this one pond are: the main crop of clams, milkfish (Chanos chanos), yellowfin seabream (Acanthopagrus latus, commonly called "red-wing"), giant grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus), tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus), white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), and golden pompano (Trachinotus blochii). Some, like grass shrimp, beard shrimp, swimming crabs, and seawater tilapia... came in with the seawater.
You can all take a look - the pond water is very clear. Because of the co-culture, the growth of algae in the pond is kept "under control." Otherwise, the algae would consume the oxygen in the water. Even without a "water wheel" churning the water to raise the "oxygen content," it would not cause the clams, fish, or shrimp in the pond to die.
Clams hide in the soil, so after digging them up they have to go through a "washing" to rinse off the mud before the clams appear.
Besides checking the health of the clam seedlings, if you scoop up "rice wine snails," you have to throw them away - just like seeing "apple snails" in a rice paddy. If there are too many, they affect the growth of the clams.
Watch me (Yu Hsin) digging down with all my might!
This is the "shrimp trap" used to catch shrimp. Fish, shrimp, and crabs all go in. A pond this big means that where you place the shrimp trap can only rely on "experience."
This is a baby clam. It takes 5 months to raise clams from fertilized eggs to this size, and only with stable weather do you get this kind of harvest. If the weather is unstable and your luck is a bit worse, the whole pond can be wiped out. Master A-He says that from fertilized egg to a size that can be shipped takes at least a year and a half, so aquaculture is also an industry that depends on the heavens for its living.
Master A-He and the others currently use this sales model: Master A-He farms at the production site of Kouhu, while Sister Sun handles sales in the city of Taipei. This is a very common sales method among farming friends nowadays. But the market has always had a dream, which is "CSA - Community Supported Agriculture." Here are the ideas:
Last year I was always interested in "cooperative farms" and "CSA - Community Supported Agriculture," but the timing was never quite right. To promote agriculture and get more people interested in it, everyone is welcome to come do field practicums, field visits, and interact with farmers. Doing this requires the combined effort of manpower and passion. The problem is, where are the people? First, field managers; second, members of community supported agriculture. It was only after reading the introduction in a book that I understood the importance of "cultivating a solid core group."
Why do "community supported agriculture"? For example: when a product is placed on a shelf, a consumer walks past, sees it, stops, pauses, observes. In this brief span of 20 seconds, the factors and willingness that determine whether to buy may be influenced by "brand, appearance, packaging, and price." Even if the consumer buys it right then, whether there is a "next time" is what we call longevity and loyalty.
Writing field notes captures the farmers' flourishes, letting everyone follow the farmers' brushstrokes and slowly grow together with the crops in the field. Fertilizing, preparing the field, releasing water, transplanting rice, weeding, controlling apple snails, patrolling the water, flowering, heading, drying the field, harvesting, sun-drying, storing, milling into white rice, packaging, transporting.
Getting closer to agriculture, the land, biodiversity...
The relationships built up this way are a positive help to the future of agriculture and to the "community supported agriculture" we want to promote.
In the first stage, gradually get a handle on potential customers. When one consumer or friend is willing to interact, the "community supported agriculture" community gains one more new force.
When the community reaches a certain scale, it becomes a force that cannot be ignored.
In the second stage, with members joining, website messages can be regularly published to members. And "planned production" can be implemented on the farm, so farmers no longer have to worry about whom to sell what they grow to. Production and marketing have been a long-standing chronic illness of agriculture, and this knot has a chance to slowly come undone.
The third stage is the "sharing of risk." Before planting preparations, "members" are recruited in advance - "one family equals one household." The book writes about "distributing the harvest": "1. You can pick it up at the farm yourself, 2. Pick it up at the farm stall and farmers' market, 3. Pick it up in town." Actually, the first two are convenient for farmers, but the third, in Taiwan, China, becomes a home delivery cost. For farmers, that is another added cost.
One fen of land, if planted with rice, yields about 400 kg of output. The annual white rice consumption of people in Taiwan, China, is about 50 kg per person, and for a family with 2 adults plus children, eating out half the time, by calculation a household buys about "50 kg of rice" a year. So one fen of land needs to find 8 community supported agriculture members.
Master A-He says you have to pick off the snails to keep them from clinging to the clams, which would make them look worse for sale. Sometimes before shipping you have to pick the snails off the clams one by one - it is truly "labor-intensive."
The shrimp in the middle, next to the white shrimp (right), is on the reddish side and rather thin - clearly sick. And in the food chain, "survival of the fittest is an inevitable law." Because Master A-He's farming does not use medication, he overcomes problems through co-culture and small-scale, multi-species farming. So anything sick or relatively weak becomes extra food for the giant groupers and tiger groupers in the pond. You can clearly see that the "white shrimp" on the right, transparent with a dark tint, and green, are healthy - this is what only pure seawater farming looks like.
People keep ordering "white shrimp" from Master A-He, but the yield is very inconsistent. If he had not explained it, everyone would think Master A-He and the others were lazy and had not gone to catch them. Actually that is not it - because of the co-culture, they rely on "shrimp traps" to catch them, so the amount that can be caught is uncertain. So after everyone reads this piece, they will understand.
This "frog suit" of Yu Hsin's was bought by Master A-He about ten-odd years ago, so it is a bit "out of order." After entering the water, water leaks in through the "holes." So when Yu Hsin comes ashore, she always does this move. Squeezing the water "out," the water comes "spraying out" with a splash.
We always have to take a group photo. You can all look at our hair - it is all "flying" backward. It is not "styled," it is just that the "sea breeze" is strong!
Besides the co-culture in the pond, the field ridges on the bank are also not sprayed with herbicide, because many creatures - including beard shrimp, sand shrimp, grass shrimp... - hide in the grass, one to forage and one to escape predators.
This photo does not capture the "essence" - that is, the water in the two ponds on the left and right is different in color. On the left is co-culture, and the pond water is so clear you can see the bottom. On the right is monoculture, so the algae has to be controlled by people going in to scoop it out, and the pond water is on the yellowish and turbid side.
The following is Yu Hsin's own account: Look at our two-girl beauty duo. In the background is the "ecological pond" at Master A-He's home, planted with "lotus." Sugarcane is planted all around it, grown by the "wild-release method." Master A-He cut some sugarcane for me to bring back to the Tianmu Farm School to share with colleagues.
This is the wild-release ecological pond. Sister Hsing-I invites everyone to visit her home when they have time to eat seafood and gnaw on wild-grown sugarcane!
This is a wild tomato that grew on its own by the ecological pond. It is only about the size of a glass marble, and its skin is thin and it is plump, so it is inconvenient to transport. Because the skin is too thin, it easily "bursts" during harvest, and it has "no sales value" on the market. But it grows very easily, and without deliberate care it still grows very well!
This is an eggplant that is growing. The white stuff beside it is the scales that Master A-He and the others removed from giant groupers - the scales are used as fertilizer.
The "sugarcane duo" - the husband leads and the wife follows!
Master A-He strictly instructs that when eating sugarcane you should bite off small mouthfuls, so your teeth will not break. I myself have come to realize that with poor teeth - I, who used to easily and leisurely bite off big mouthfuls of sugarcane, can now only take small, small bites. So health is important. "Being able to eat is a blessing!"
Everyone, please guess what this is?
The picture above is the fruit of the screw pine (Pandanus tectorius). When teaching at community college or giving talks at schools, I sometimes take it out to "joke" with the students: do you know where "pineapples" grow? I always show this picture. By my count, about 20 percent of students believe that pineapples grow "on trees." Ha...
Master A-He is making a childhood toy - using the leaves of the screw pine to make a "horn."
What Yu Hsin is holding is a "pinwheel."
The countryside has this advantage. After living in the city for a long time, the issue of "parking" is always a headache. In the city, wherever you go, parking is a big problem. But everyone look at this picture - park however you like!
Further reading
Yang Ju-men's journey to the production site (1) Friendly aquaculture without medication!
Master A-He's natural ecological fish, shrimp, and shellfish