Creating Wealth in Jiangsu: a New idea of Crab raising for "Crab cadres"

As the saying goes, the autumn wind rises, the crab feet itch, and now the autumn wind rises suddenly, which is the season for crabs to go on the market. Today, the protagonist of creating wealth in Jiangsu is a college student village official in Gucheng, who leads the villagers to raise hairy crabs, which is affectionately known as "crab cadres".

Early in the morning, by a pond in Shuguang Village, Gucheng Town, a young man was carefully examining the growth of aquatic plants. He was Xu Xinzhu, a "crab cadre". In order to give the crab a good growing environment, he planted many kinds of aquatic plants in the pond, such as goldfish algae, verticillium verticillata and so on. These aquatic plants grow in different seasons, which also ensures that the aquatic plants in the pond are continuous all the year round.

Why should aquatic plants be planted in hairy crabs? Xu Xinzhu said that one of the reasons for sitting in this way is to purify the water quality, and the second is to protect the crab's molting. When the crab molts, the bird will fly down to eat, and if there are aquatic crabs, they will hide inside, climb to the top or hide below.

For many years, local crab farmers in Gucheng Lake have been farmed around the lake, that is, they have farmed crabs in a square enclosed by fishing nets in Gucheng Lake. In this method, the shell and excrement of crabs accumulate for a long time, which pollutes the water quality of Gucheng Lake. Under the advice of experts, Xu Xinzhu decided to change the old method and adopt intensive culture ponds.

Xu Xinzhu said that this kind of intensive culture pond excavated has a sense of hierarchy, deep and shallow, and the control of the water temperature of the crab in each period of time is easy for it to grow and molt, and the depth of the water in the pond is different, so it can be controlled one by one, and then plant water plants and sprinkle snails to make a circular adjustment.

In order to improve the efficiency of aquaculture, Xu Xinzhu also adopted an economical culture model, that is, crab farming is mainly used in crab ponds, while a series of aquatic products such as green shrimp, mandarin fish, silver carp, grass carp and crucian carp are raised.

Xu Xinzhu said that crucian carp is mainly eaten when mandarin fish breed, while large silver carp and mackerel eat the fungi inside, and snails are put in to purify the water quality and give it to crabs, which is equivalent to a small ecosystem.

After several years of crab breeding, Xu Xinzhu has accumulated certain breeding experience and financial base. seeing that the villagers around him are still following the old way of raising crabs, he came to explain the new breeding model and taught each other what he had learned. Liu Qiqiang is one of the 20 households in the village to improve their crab farming methods.

Liu Qiqiang, a crab farmer in Gucheng, said that at first he had no experience and could not raise them, and many crabs would die every year. Later, I heard that Xu Xinzhu was raising crabs with many people with more experience, so we followed him to learn to raise crabs. Under his leadership, now the annual output of crabs is also quite high, and we are beginning to make money.

Before raising crabs, for Xu Xinzhu, crabs were just a delicious delicacy on the dinner table. When he really began to raise crabs, he realized that it was difficult to raise crabs.

Xu Xinzhu, 32, is in his ninth year as a village official. He graduated from Yancheng Institute of Technology and majored in marketing. He has worked as a sales and assistant manager, and now he has become an expert in crab farming. When it comes to forming a bond with crabs, we have to go back to ten years ago, when Xu Xinzhu had just graduated and worked in Shanghai.

Xu Xinzhu said that at that time, he knew that there were crabs in Gucheng Lake, but he did not expect that he was so famous that he could also see crabs from his hometown in Shanghai.

In 2006, under the instigation of his classmates, Xu Xinzhu, who had worked for a year, applied for the village official together. As a result, with the mentality of giving it a try, Xu Xinzhu, who accompanied his classmates in the examination, was admitted to the grass-roots village officials in his hometown. As he often deals with crab farmers in his daily work, coupled with the crab festival held by Gao Chun for many years, the public recognition, social awareness and brand reputation of crabs in Gucheng Lake have formed a certain foundation, which gave him the idea of raising crabs and starting a business.

Xu Xinzhu said, "at that time, I only had 20,000 yuan, which was not enough. At that time, I agreed with others that the contracted land was 550 yuan per mu a year, but I didn't have so much money, so I just went a little ahead of time. When I sold the crabs the next year, I would pay the rent when I had the money."

In November 2007, Xu Xinzhu leased 18 mu of water from seven farmers in the village with a patchwork of 100000 yuan, opening his own way to start a business. At that time, without any experience, the crabs raised by Xu Xinzhu suffered casualties and lost more than 20,000.

Xu Xinzhu said that the regulation and control of water quality was not in place, and there were casualties. Later, there was no way to urgently replenish seedlings. When you were a child, ten crabs died at the top. If you see one dead, then there are ten dead in the water.

Watching the crab seedling die, but did not know the reason, anxious Xu Xinzhu invited experts to Tangkou to observe and analyze, which found the reason for the failure. Their own crab pond ridge digging is not high enough, the summer water level is not deep enough, the water temperature is too high, resulting in crab casualties, coupled with too many species, too high density, crab growth is limited. In the face of losses, Xu Xinzhu gradually understood the importance of scientific crab farming.

Xu Xinzhu began to go to the Fisheries Bureau for advice, looking for information on the Internet, and often asked old farmers for advice.

In 2009, Xu Xinzhu registered his trademark and established a professional cooperative for crab breeding. at present, the annual value of the industrial chain is more than 4 million yuan, and the output value per mu can reach 10,000 yuan. After aquaculture was on the right track, Xu Xinzhu also began to think about marketing. With the rise of online marketing, he took the lead of "Internet + Agriculture" and began to sell crabs online. But Xu Xinzhu feels that although online sales are helpful, piecemeal sales are not always a long-term solution. As a result, Xu Xinzhu tried the direct sales model again, taking crabs to Wuxi and Suzhou to contact customers. Big customers are more willing to buy crabs from farmers, eliminating the price difference and reducing the risk of casualties. Now, half of his crabs are sold directly to big customers.

Under the leadership of Xu Xinzhu, a "crab cadre", almost every family of local villagers are raising hairy crabs and have become rich, but this year he has some trouble. why?

Well, this time last year, crabs from Shuguang Village have been preparing for listing in large numbers one after another, and it seems that there has been no movement this year.

In the crab pond behind the reporter, Xu Xinzhu is rowing and is checking the crab's last molting this year. After finding the molted shells of several crabs, Xu Xinzhu seemed a little worried.

Xu Xinzhu said that this year's crab molting has been postponed, according to previous years, basically this time has been over, the crab shell is all finished, you can see the molted shell in the crab pond, the hair on the crab's pliers is white.

Originally, Gucheng local hairy crabs were listed in large numbers at this time in previous years, but this summer due to continuous torrential rain, followed by days of high temperature, the crabs were washed away, suffocated to death, and the output was reduced, not to mention that even the normal last molting time was delayed, and this delay affected the normal acquisition and sale of crabs.

Liu Qiqiang, a crab farmer in Gucheng, said that the listing time has been delayed for half a month this year, and now someone has come up to collect the crabs.

To Xu Xinzhu's slight relief, due to the reduction in production and the delay in listing, the price of hairy crabs has been rising all the way this year, which can more or less make up for the loss of his 30 mu crab pond.

Xu Xinzhu said that when preparing to open the pond for sale, get 30 to 40 jin, 40 to 50 jin to the market to explore the way, to see how the market is like, to see whether there are many people and crabs, ah, now according to the situation in the water, whether all the daily feeding can be eaten, if you master the situation, it is about the same as more than 150 jin per mu.

Talking about future development, Xu Xinzhu told reporters that at present, most local farmers are mainly retail investors, and there are relatively few large farmers. On the one hand, he should consider expanding the scale; on the other hand, he also hopes to attract more retail farmers to join cooperatives, take the road of large-scale farming, unify brands, unify the selection and purchase of seedlings, and unify sales channels.

Xu Xinzhu said that crab farming may have to be carried out on a large scale in the future. This year, I also planned to breed more than 20 mu next to it. I have been telling my customers and friends that we should ensure the quality and specifications.

The new financial and entrepreneurial mentor believes that Xu Xinzhu uses new farming methods to open up new direct marketing channels and lead villagers to cultivate hairy crabs to get rich. Crab farming is easily affected by the natural environment. In case of natural disasters, the way to reduce the risk is to disperse breeding. In the future, he can consider building ponds in different locations. In terms of scale expansion, we must go through scientific investigation and demonstration.

Li Haoqing, an entrepreneurial tutor, said that in view of all the risks that crabs may face, such as weather reasons, water quality problems, and market problems, each situation should be carefully studied and prepared to deal with them. although you can't avoid it, you can reduce the losses caused by this and increase your profits.