Liang Meirong, the 52-year-old sea bass breeder from Guangdong’s Zhuhai city, felt a bit nervous being a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). She said, “It’s a great deal of responsibility carrying the expectation of people in my hometown.”

Liang Meirong

This is not the first time for Liang to be in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as she was awarded as the National Model Worker two years ago. She is well known for her skills of sea bass breeding in Zhuhai’s Baijiao Town, the biggest sea bass breeding and processing area in China.

Liang and her husband, Zhao Xiyuan, became the very first sea bass breeders in Baijiao in 2004.

“We ran a food stall and made little money. So, we decided to give it a try when the Zhuhai government encouraged us to develop fish breeding industry. We first bred 30 acres of different fishes and earned tens of thousands of yuan for the first year,” she said.

The couple then felt confidence in the industry and expanded the scale to 100 acres in the second year. However, they found that not every type of fish is constantly profitable except sea bass, as a result of which, they determined to breed sea bass only.

To improve sales volume, they adopted a clearer division of work. Liang’s husband was responsible for mechanical maintenance and heavy manual work while Liang was in charge of sales. Liang explained, “We bought fodder in group purchase, bred fish and sold fish with other villagers.”

In 2013, the local agricultural bureau tried to carry out a model called “cooperative” and encouraged Liang to establish a cooperative. The official elaborated that what Liang has been doing is a cooperative model. It means cooperating with other villagers to breed and sell fish.

Liang said yes to the offer and established a cooperative, and then she had professional training provided by the government and learned lots of agricultural knowledge.

Thus far, Liang’s cooperative has become the biggest of Zhaoxin Village of Baijiao Town with more than 1000 acres of fish ponds and 56 members. It provides villagers with whole-process services from fish breeding to sales.

“The villagers visited our office every day after having finished their work. We share knowledge about the market and breeding experience. We jointly come up with solutions when we meet challenges,” Liang added, “A large-scale feed factory set up a service team in our cooperative, helping breeders to test water quality and give breeding guidance.”

Liang said she would love to help people in need because they started everything from ground up and have confidence in fish breeding. “If the family is poor and they make money through our cooperative, we split it 50-50. If they lose money, it’s on us,” she added.

Zhaoxin is now the village with the largest sea bass output in Baijiao. Statistics show more than 70 percent of the villagers are engaged in the sea bass-related jobs. More than 70 percent of its farmland is used for sea bass breeding and its annual production value reached 480 million RMB. The personal annual income reached 137 thousand RMB.

In 2014, Liang was proposed and encouraged to join the CPC committee and village committee of Zhaoxin Village by the villagers and the CPC members while serving as the president of the village’s Women's Federation. Since then, she started to learn how to serve people’s need.

“I got the chance to learn more about people’s situation in the village, and pay attention to the family conflicts faced by women and the health problems of the elderly,” she said.

Liang kept thinking about her sea bass industry when serving her duty as a delegate to the CPC national congress. She said, “I communicated with other delegates a lot in between meetings. These delegates are highly sophisticated. I got to know the business sectors they work for and how their villages develop, so that I can learn from them.”

Liang wants to promote the development of sea bass industry. “We see the ready-to-cook sea bass dishes a future trend, and some companies have already invested in the production lines in our village. A few villagers also registered a company and trademark for sea bass processed products,” said Liang.

Source: Shi Xuan, Feng Ye of Southern Weekly

English version: Wing, Olivia, Jasmine, Jerry