Rice-crayfish coculture increases rural income in Shiping

जन आस्था

फागुन ११, २०८०

Along the roadside in Dimo village of Shiping county in Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture of Yunnan, villagers are scooping up crayfish from the rice fields with wire cages and then putting them into baskets.

"My family owns 16 mu (about 10666.67 m2) of rice fields, where we raise crayfish, too. We can earn an average of 6,000 yuan per mu," said Li Fenglin, a farmer in Dimo village who has just embraced the bumper harvest of the two agro-products.

At present, the village raises crayfish in a rice-crayfish coculture mode covering more than 400 mu. They use a high-protein ecological feeding method of soybean cake plus corn and crayfish feed."

It takes less than three months for each crayfish to grow from seedlings to mature ones, and the harvest season lasts from July of the current year to April of the following year. The output value of crayfish per mu can reach over 3.1 million yuan.

Rice-crayfish coculture is a win-win mode for both rice plantation and crayfish raising. Pests and microorganisms in the rice fields provide food for the growth and development of crayfish, while the excrement produced by crayfish provides fertilizer for rice growth. crayfish also capture pests and their eggs in the rice fields, reducing diseases and pests for rice growth.

By selecting suitable varieties for integrated farming, the coculture mdoe can effectively achieve benefits such as dual use of water, double harvest in one field, stable grain production, and win-win situation for grain and crayfish, further reducing agricultural non-point source pollution.