A new way to make catch of the day

Nearly every family from Wangyuan village, in Jianli county near Honghu Lake in Hubei province, earns a living from raising crawfish. Their efforts have resulted in the county being the largest producer of the crustacean in China for the past seven years. In 2018, the yield of crawfish from Jianli reached 130,000 metric tons.

However, crawfish farmers in the village suffered greatly from the novel coronavirus epidemic in Hubei, the Chinese province hit hardest by the outbreak. Because of the lockdown imposed on the province, juvenile crawfish could not be sold during the peak sales period from late February to early March.

Transportation services resumed in March, but crawfish prices remained low. The price for a kilogram of juvenile crawfish plummeted from 70 yuan ($10) last year to about 8 yuan this year.

However, even as spring plowing approached, Wangyuan villagers continued harvesting crawfish from their paddy fields. By the end of March, they were gathering crawfish after midnight to send to wholesalers in the morning. Several hours of labor only earned a household several hundred yuan.

In May, people who became aware of the villagers' predicament helped them sell crawfish via online platforms. The online sales have attracted crawfish dealers to the village and also improved the farmers' financial situations.