Crawfish change struggling farmers’ fortunes
appeared in brooks and ditches crisscrossing the land and were widely considered an invasive species that harmed crops.
“But I learned that half a kilogram of crawfish could sell for nearly 1 yuan (14 cents) in the market, which sounded more profitable than growing rice,” he said.
Having worked in the aquaculture industry for more than a decade, Liu trusted his gut instinct and dived into crawfish raising to test whether the lobster-like crustacean could survive large scale.
“In the first year, which was 1999, I devoted about half the contracted land to regular rice cultivation, and the other half to crawfish farming,” he said.
“As the revenues turned out decent, I began scaling up production and rotating between crawfish and rice.”
Since crawfish are highly tolerant of cold temperatures, the rotation method allows farmers to make use in local rivers on a of the land during winter, when rice farming is halted.
“The timing works perfectly as seed crawfish are dispersed around September and mature crustacean will be ready for harvest the next May, to be followed by one crop of traditional rice planting,” Liu said.
“Shifting to crawfish during several months also works to loosen the soil, remove weeds and fertilize the fields, which is beneficial for rice farming.”
The 300 kilograms of wild crawfish he bought from local farmers in 2000 led to a harvest of 1,500 kg of crawfish in the early spring of 2001, which was sold for more than 5,000 yuan. During the summer, Liu was able to generate another 3,000 yuan from cultivating rice.
Since then, the rotation farming of rice and crawfish has been gaining momentum in Baowan and has gradually been extended across Hubei.
Liu, who stepped down as Baowan’s Party secretary in the early 2000s, found a new passion: researching ways to encourage crawfish to breed in crop fields.
He rented about 20 hectares of farmland in a neighboring village as an experimental site for the rotation method, and invested more than 1 million yuan to build necessary infrastructure.
“The most fundamental wish of most farmers is to increase yields and revenue from farmland,” Liu said. “My goal has always been to help farmers earn more money and enjoy more secure livelihoods.”
Now known as the “father of the crawfish-rice farming approach”, Liu has been promoting the method nationwide. In 2017, he was hired by the authorities in Mengcheng county, Anhui province, to offer technical guidance to local farmers. The county is aiming to extend its crawfish breeding area to 13,000 hectares by next year.
Liu’s innovative engine is still revving up. “I am now working on incorporating lotus plants to the crawfish ponds,” he said. “The goal is to allow farmers to multiply their sources of income, and thus build a stronger safety net for their livelihoods.”