Stories of High-Quality Development | Mussel farming drives integrated land-sea development

Narrator: Ye Dingguo, Village Supervisory Committee Member and Mussel Farmer, Lixi Village, Gouqi Township, Shengsi County, Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province

I've watched the sea around Gouqi Island for most of my life. It's been 44 years since I joined the production team's aquaculture farm at 15, and I've never left these waters.

In the early years, farming mussels was a constant battle against the forces of nature. When a typhoon hit, whole stretches of rafts and buoys would be destroyed, and half a year's work could be gone in a single night. Even in good weather, you couldn't feel at ease. The market could crash without warning, and if you couldn't sell your mussels, they would just rot on the boat. Sometimes you couldn't even cover the shipping costs. Back then, the island's small farmers all worked on their own and quality was inconsistent, so a good harvest rarely meant a good income. I felt deeply frustrated.

Then, gradually, I came to understand that the answers to those problems are often found on shore.

In 2012, I took the lead in establishing a cooperative, bringing the small independent farmers together under unified standards and a unified brand. After that, we did two things. First, we phased out the highly polluting foam buoys. I visited several plastics factories, drew up designs and tested materials myself, and eventually developed new eco-friendly buoys and hull plates. By the end of 2023, all of the cooperative's foam buoys had been replaced, eliminating long-term microplastic pollution of the sea. Second, we promoted standardized farming. Information on all our farming plots was entered into Gouqi township's digital aquaculture management platform, giving a clear view of each grower's data. This lets us control quality at the source and gives customers confidence in what they buy. In 2024, the county carried out its first round of assessment and certification for skilled marine aquaculture workers. On the strength of my skills and my role in bringing other farmers along, I was certified as a "senior aquaculture master" and recognized as a county-level Class U talent, which comes with access to technical training, credit support and other benefits. With upgraded equipment and a larger operation, I feel far more confident about my work.

Scientific and technological support has also flowed steadily from shore to sea. Experts from Zhejiang Ocean University and Shanghai Ocean University came and set up laboratories by the shore. We provided boats and manpower and helped with seawater testing and sample collection. In return, new technologies such as triploid breeding and offshore artificial upwelling devices were put into practice, and 27 industry challenges were tackled one by one. Experts came to the island to run training sessions, and professors paired up with farmers to mentor them. Farmers learned new techniques and changed their methods, something that would have been unimaginable in the past.

With the backing of science and technology, our ability to withstand risks has also improved. Before a typhoon hits, the early-warning platform sends out alerts in advance, so we harvest what needs harvesting and secure what needs securing. We're no longer working blind as we did before. In addition, individuals only need to pay 25 percent of the premium for the mussel farming insurance, and the rest is covered by government subsidies at various levels. We feel far more secure when disaster strikes.

But withstanding risks alone isn't enough. The key is to sell the mussels at a good price. In recent years, the county has developed a deep-processing industry for mussels. Quick-frozen mussels and other products have been launched one after another, and mussel processing companies have mushroomed. In the past, we only sold raw materials, with whole boatloads hauled away at prices set by others. Today, with automated sorting, large mussels longer than 9 centimeters are made into "butterfly mussel kings." A single one now sells for as much as a whole catty (0.5 kilograms) did in the past. Live mussels in oxygenated water are supplied directly to well-known supermarkets nationwide.

The move from selling raw materials to selling a brand relies on the combined support of onshore policy, science and technology, finance and the market. The sea sustains the people, and the "brain" on shore sustains the sea. That's what integrated land-sea development means to me.