Polyculture breathes new life into shoreline

New business

Seeing the improvement to the environment, many local residents who had difficulties figuring out how to make a living when they were told to cease all farming, fishing and agritainment activities in 2018, are now greatly surprised by their new lives.

"We no longer worry about the loss of generations-old businesses and farms, as we are quite satisfied with the changes the government-supported farming businesses started elsewhere have brought us," said Yu Changwu, one of the 25,000 villagers who were relocated from the core area of the wetland.

Wang Jin, director of the Ninghe Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, who was born and raised in the area, said: "Now, farmers have been assigned larger farmlands farther from the shore and are mentored by the country's top polyculture experts and business owners. They are reaping bumper harvests from rice-crab polyculture."

Du Naihe, one of the biggest crab and rice polyculture business owners in Ninghe since the 1980s, has been delighted to discover that he has so many followers, and that all of Ninghe's 186 sq km of paddy fields will be devoted to polyculture by the end of next year.

"Only 2 sq km was used for polyculture in 2018. With more farmers moving out of Qilihai and being assigned new farms farther away, crab and rice polyculture is already being practiced on 136 sq km of rice fields," he said.

According to the local government, total crab sales could hit 360 million yuan this year, while rice production from polyculture could help farmers increase their incomes by 100 million yuan.