Crayfish farming is unlocking new economic opportunities in Makit County, northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where villagers are converting desert land into profitable aquaculture ponds.
What was once desolate Gobi wasteland is now dotted with glimmering aquaculture ponds, offering local villagers fresh income and renewed hope.
The initiative began when aid teams from east China's Shandong Province introduced the bold concept of transplanting crayfish farming from China's east coast to Xinjiang's arid west.
After more than a year of repeated experiments, they succeeded in raising Australian freshwater crayfish in desert conditions. To ensure villagers could take part, the team built ponds, installed equipment, and prepared easy-to-use guides on crayfish farming.
At first, the challenges were daunting as the desert's water is extremely difficult to manage-it gets scorching hot by day, freezing by night, and the quality is hard.
The first batch of crayfish larvae saw survival rates of just 10 percent.
"We were also very anxious, so we immediately brought in a professional (aquaculture) team from Rizhao, and they simply stayed by the crayfish ponds. In Xinjiang, the water is highly saline and alkaline, and if the crayfish don't molt, they won't survive. To adjust the water quality, there was one day when we conducted more than a hundred tests, and the data filled up two whole notebooks," said Bu Xiangbing, aid Xinjiang cadre from Rizhao City, Shandong Province.
After two years of persistence, survival rates drastically improved. By 2024, Xinjiang's desert-raised crayfish were quickly sold out on the market, proving both the quality and potential of this new industry.
The farming area has now expanded to 160 mu (about 26 acres), involving over 100 local households.
For locals like Nueraihemaiti Reheman, the impact is life changing.
"After learning the skills, I bought a car. I earn 40,000 (about 5,492 U.S. dollars) to 50,000 yuan (about 6,865 U.S. dollars) a year now," he said.
"My wife and I both work here. Together we make 5,500 yuan a month," said another staff member named Abudula Abulizi.
Desert crayfish farming turns barren Xinjiang land into booming industry
Seven of the eight major categories of commodities and services that make up China's consumer price index (CPI) have risen in March, said an analyst after the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the latest data on Friday.
The latest data showed China's CPI, a main gauge of inflation, rose 1 percent year on year in March, and the core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 1.1 percent year on year.
Among them, prices of industrial consumer goods grew by 2.2 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from the previous month, contributing about 0.67 percentage points to the year-on-year CPI increase.
Specifically, the prices of gold jewelry, household appliances and clothing all went up, while gasoline prices turned from a decline to a rise.
"Of the eight major categories of commodities and services that make up the CPI, seven recorded price increases and one saw a decline, namely the residential category. Specifically, driven by strong seasonal demand, a rise in clothing prices pushed up the overall price of the apparel category year on year. The price of the transportation and communication category shifted from a decline to a year-on-year increase. Meanwhile, boosted by growing resident travel demand, prices for travel agency services also rose year on year," said He Xiaoying, deputy director at the analysis and forecasting division of the price monitoring center under the National Development and Reform Commission.
Friday's data also showed that the producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, returned to year-on-year growth in March, ending a 41-month streak of decline.
The PPI rose 0.5 percent year on year in March, reversing a 0.9 percent drop in February, according to the NBS.
NBS statistician Dong Lijuan attributed the turnaround mainly to imported inflationary pressures and improved supply-demand dynamics in some domestic industries.
Peng Xiaozhen, an analyst at Sublime China Information Company Limited, an institute specializing in providing information on Chinese commodity market, said overall, China's PPI is set to recover.
"International energy markets experienced wide fluctuations, and rising costs pushed up prices across the entire petrochemical industrial chain. Boosted by higher energy and chemical product prices, the rebound trend of China's PPI was further consolidated and overall, its recovery is going to continue," said Peng.
Price hike of seven major categories drives China's CPI in March: analyst
