Rice-fish co-culture system in east China's Zhejiang
Xinhua, July 20, 2022 Adjust font size:
In this aerial photo, villagers celebrate in traditional costumes as they start ploughing and release fish fry into rice fields in Xiaozhoushan Township, Qingtian County, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 11, 2020.
The rice-fish co-culture system in Qingtian has a history of more than 1,300 years and was listed in the world's first group of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2005.
Qingtian, in the southwestern part of Zhejiang, has sufficient water resources and a terraced landscape. The rice-fish co-culture system can bring handsome incomes to local farmers.
In 2021, the rice-fish co-culture system in Qingtian covered around 3,700 hectares of paddy fields, with an average rice yield of 7.2 tonnes per hectare. The total output value of rice and fish reached 265 million yuan (about 39.3 million U.S. dollars). (Xinhua/Xu Yu)
