Farmers raise fish to improve their crop
Print Edition
Chinese farmers are employing everything from mosquito nets to raising catfish and ducks trying to grow healthier food.
In Heheng village, some 250 kilometers from Shanghai, fields of golden crops sway in the autumn wind.
A giant white mosquito net stands in the field. It is so large it needs to be supported by steel tubes three meters apart.
The idea of using a net to control pests came from Shi Yang, a 35-year-old farmer in Taizhou city, Jiangsu Province.
“With this net, flying insects such as plant hoppers cannot spawn in the field, which dramatically reduces my use of pesticides,” Shi said yesterday, World Food Day.
Shi also raises ducks to eat grass and frogs to eat small insects before the harvest.
Using organic fertilizers, his rice yield is significantly lower, but thanks to its high quality each kilogram can be sold for up to 80 yuan (US$12).
“We earn nearly 10,000 yuan per mu, around 10 times the price of rice grown with fertilizers and pesticides,” Shi said. “People like organic food nowadays. We sell it online and the demand always exceeds supply.”
In 1990, Heheng was added to the Global 500 Roll of Honor by the United Nations Environment Program, due to its success in protecting the environment while increasing yields.
Last year, Shi tried growing “mosquito net rice” on a quarter hectare of land. This year he expanded coverage to a full hectare.
China has only 7 percent of the world’s arable land to feed more than 20 percent of the world’s population.
The overuse of fertilizers and pesticides in China has damaged environment and caused food safety concerns.
To promote low-carbon development in agriculture, China plans to achieve a zero increase in the use of fertilizers and pesticide use by the year 2020.
Shi’s innovative farming methods are not the exception among his counterparts in Heheng.
Another farmer, Sun Fei, 30, has been developing fish farming in his paddy fields to help his crops survive and grow.
“I put catfish in the paddy fields. The fish live in the shallow water. They eat rice pests and their excrement nourishes the rice,” he said.
Sun uses two hectares for his rice-fish farming, earning him 150,000 yuan last year.
Farmers in the rice-growing area also raise ducks, chickens, lobster and crabs to create a biological chain of green farming, helping to curb soil degradation and raise fertility.
“There is a big potential in the healthy and organic food market,” Shi said. “I hope to install mosquito nets in more paddy fields next year.”
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