Ecological farming makes pig farmers on the road to prosperity

Wu Liekuan is feeding pigs.

Wu Liekuan, a villager of Longlan Village, Xintang Town, Gangnan District, Guigang City, Guangxi, has been working in Guangdong. In early 2014, Wu Liekuan went back to his hometown to run a pig farm under the persuasion of his fellow villagers, earning nearly 300000 in less than a year.

"while getting rich and increasing income, the living environment around the pig house has been significantly improved, achieving a 'win-win' effect." Wu Liekuan said with a smile that in the past, the pig house smelled so bad that the sanitary conditions were very poor, and the nearby villagers complained a lot. Now, by adopting the method of ecological breeding, not only the environment of the pig house has become better, all kinds of feces have been recycled, and after the sanitary conditions have improved, fewer pigs have become sick, and the meat quality has also been improved.

Walking into Wu Liekuan's pig farm, a big stereo is playing all kinds of music in a loop. The pigsty is divided into upper and lower layers, separated by a grid in the middle. Unlike the old pig farm, Wu Liekuan's pig farm has a clean floor and no pungent fishy smell.

"the purpose of playing music is to make pigs get used to the sound and is not easy to be frightened in the future." Wu Liekuan said that his pig house adopts the automatic cleaning mode of "raising pigs in a high bed." pigs sleep on a grid bed, and their excreta is automatically diverted. The fermented manure is used as organic fertilizer, and urine is used for biogas power generation. Pig waste is "squeezed dry and exhausted."

At present, 126 large-scale farms in Guigang City have adopted high-bed breeding technology, 248 farms have used livestock and poultry manure to produce biogas, and 423 farms have adopted the ecological breeding model of combination of planting and breeding.

"Ecological aquaculture is a big concept, including not only the ecology of the breeding process, but also the ecology of the residents and the surrounding environment." Liu Xiangdong, doctor of Huazhong Agricultural University, said that taking pig farming as an example, it is necessary to keep the pig house clean and hygienic so that pigs can have a comfortable living environment, and at the same time comprehensively utilize livestock and poultry manure by means of dry-wet separation and anaerobic fermentation to improve the surrounding environment and ecology.

"what pig farmers are most worried about is the illness of pigs and the decline in meat prices." Wu Liekuan said that he raised 680 pigs in the first batch and 750 in the second batch. Because of the "ecological breeding" method, the survival rate of pigs is more than 99%. Now his 750 pigs are the third batch. "I signed an acquisition agreement with the company and adopted the method of insured recovery. Even though pork prices fluctuated greatly last year, each pig still had a profit of about 200 yuan."

Huang Dingshou, chairman of Guangxi Yangxiang Co., Ltd., who signed a repurchase agreement with Wu Liekuan, said: "the scientific and technological content of ecological farming is high, and it is difficult to operate solely on farmers themselves, and the company provides technical support and market guarantee." In order to strengthen the technical support capacity, the company cooperates with a number of scientific research institutes to increase pig breed improvement and control costs.

Huang Dingshou said that in order to reduce the risk of farmers, the model of "company + peasant household" and "company + family farm" was adopted. The company was responsible for providing farmers with seedlings, feed, breeding technology, veterinary medicine epidemic prevention and health care, and order contract recovery. Farmers are responsible for building breeding fences and labor. "the aquaculture market was in the doldrums in the past two years, but the company insisted on purchasing the pigs of cooperative farmers in accordance with the contract, ensuring that each pig could make a profit of more than 100 to 200 yuan."

Talking about the next step, Huang Dingshou said that Guigang City is constantly innovating the ecological breeding model and exploring the use of the "company + cooperative" model to support rural poor households. The company is building pig farms with local cooperatives, one cooperative raising 1000 pigs, and using the treated manure to plant an ecological base of 100mu, each cooperative is designated to help 10 poor households. "every poor household who works in a pig farm can earn more than 20,000 yuan a year."