Desert shrimp farms create giant business

Wang Changgui, a farmer from Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, began raising whiteleg shrimp, brought over from Ecuador six years ago — but the task was rough going at the outset.

In the beginning, Wang had great difficulty mastering the craft and lost money for several years. But thanks to the help of experts, shrimp farming turned out to be a lucrative source of income for him.

Wang, now 60 years of age, has become a seasoned aquaculture practitioner, and expects to make 800,000 to 900,000 yuan ($110,000 to $123,000) from shrimp farming in saline ponds this year.

He is targeting an annual shrimp output of 25 metric tons, with his product selling for between 50 to 60 yuan per kilogram locally.

Ordos, near the Kubuqi Desert, has a large amount of saline soil, and local farmers usually soak the saline land with Yellow River water to remove the surface salt. The saline water is then discharged through a drainage canal, said Gao Lei, head of aquatic farming at Ordos Hanggin Banner Bureau of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

Few plants are able to survive in saline land, Gao said, adding that meanwhile, the high salinity levels in the soil are ideal for pond-based shrimp farming, allowing the banner to start raising whiteleg shrimp in 2015.

Thanks to research conducted by experts, the banner has managed to form its ways of raising shrimp by adjusting salinity and temperature levels, thus allowing yields to more than double.

Last year, the annual production value of the Ordos shrimp reached around 30 million yuan and the incomes of locals have also increased accordingly, Gao added.

Zhu Changbo, a former researcher with the South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, came to Ordos from Guangzhou, Guangdong province, to help locals improve shrimp breeding techniques.

The key is to make adjustments to the saline water so it corresponds to ideal conditions, said Zhu, who is now an animal physiology professor at Inner Mongolia Agricultural University.

With the maturation of breeding techniques, shrimp farming has been rapidly promoted and developed in Ordos.

Locals have started using saline removed from nearby waterways to raise shrimp, which not only creates a new aquaculture sector, but makes effective use of the heretofore unusable byproduct of local desalination efforts, Zhu said.

He added that this process greatly contributes to the growth of plants and soil fixation, thus aiding in preventing desertification.

The shrimp raised in the salty ponds tastes no different from shrimp harvested from the sea, he said.

"People who are worried about eating seafood due to the Japanese government's decision to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean can feel safe with our shrimp, which are raised in places far from the sea," said Zhu.

The shrimp are mainly sold to cities near Ordos, such as Hohhot and Baotou in Inner Mongolia, and Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, he added.

Gao, Hanggin's aquatic farming director, said they have also been experimenting with using greenhouses to raise the shrimp instead of outdoor ponds.

As Ordos has relatively low temperatures, farmers are only able to harvest mature shrimp once a year. But greenhouses can realize twice-annual yields. Moreover, raising shrimp in a greenhouse with higher temperatures allows for a higher density, resulting in an increased output, Gao said.

However, greenhouses also require more human labor input, he added.

"We hope to make saline water fisheries a good way to increase incomes and prevent desertification, so there will be more 'fishery oases' in salty lands."