When it comes to caviar, many people's minds immediately come to mind ...... Michelin, Western food, luxury, and fine cuisineIn the minds of most Chinese people, it represents a kind of "high-end imported product".
However, to the surprise of many people, the caviar of Sichuan Runzhao Fishery *** hereinafter referred to as "Runzhao Fishery") from Chengdu will produce 50 tons in 2022, accounting for more than 12% of the global share, and is exported to more than 30 countries and regions, and has successfully entered top hotels, stores such as Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the famous Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris, and many Michelin restaurants around the world!
Agricultural products go abroad, need a series of variety, quality to brand building, and this kind of products, which have been occupied by Europeans for a long time, can successfully enter the global high-end market, behind which is more than 10 years of hard work on the whole industry chain. Recently, the reporter of this newspaper interviewed the industry's leading enterprises and relevant experts in depth to see what kind of development "password" is behind this report card.
The "black **" that grows from green mountains and green waters
Under the clear winter sky, the top of the majestic Longmen Mountain is already covered with snow. The melting snow and ice trickle down the ravines and converge at the foot of the mountains to form a river with a clear bottom.
Swimming upriver along the road by the river, Chen Jing, who had come all the way from Japan, rolled down the window of the car and was greeted by a breath of pure and crisp air. In the distance, fish ponds are embedded in the mountains and forests like jewels, and the snow-capped mountains and forests are reflected in the blue water, like a mirror of the sky.
Chen Jing is a quality control provider of a number of high-end restaurants in Japan, and his customers are all over French, Italian, Japanese and other fields, including the century-old Michelin restaurant Kikunoi, Piaoxiang, Joel Robusson, etc., which is quite well-known in the industry. His selection of ingredients can almost be described as "harsh". Since this year, for the first time, caviar from China has appeared in Chen Jing's quality control list, and in line with his usual rigorous attitude, he decided to personally visit the source of farming. "When I looked at it today, to my surprise, I didn't expect that there would be a pure land like Hokkaido in Sichuan, China!He said.
On both sides of the valley where the breeding base is located, there is a large sign: on one side is "good mountains and good water raise good fish, caviar fragrance floats all over the world", and on the other side is "lucid water and green mountains are gold and silver mountains". Standing in the middle of the two signboards, Chen Jing wrote "excellent" in the report column of the environmental inspection.
Good mountains and good water
Raise good fish that go out into the world
The large circular pool is filled with splashes, and the big fish swim happily along the edge of the pool, occasionally jumping out of the water like dolphins, and then entering the water gracefully and diving to the bottom again. "This is a very healthy and happy performance of them," Li Guangling, a technician at the Runzhao Fishery Breeding Technology Center, carefully observed the performance of the sturgeon, telling reporters while recording.
Caviar, foie gras and black truffle are known as the world's three luxury delicacies, especially in the high-end markets of Europe, the United States, Japan and other places. Because it takes at least 8 years to wait for a sturgeon to mature enough to take eggs, the production is scarce and extremely precious, and it is often sold in the international market, known as "black ** on the table".
Since 2008, the International Convention on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has proposed to ban the fishing of wild sturgeon, and there is a gap of thousands of tons of annual production in the market. However, compared with the vigorous development of other economic fish, the cultivation of sturgeon is not easy, and the harsh breeding environment has become the first bottleneck.
Our technicians ran all over Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places, just carrying the water quality notes for comparison weighed 5 pounds, and finally locked here, there are large snow-capped mountains, the water melted by ice and snow is not only kept below 20 degrees all year round, but the unpolluted water quality is also very stable", after a whole year of water quality investigation, the first breeding base in Pengzhou City, Longmen Mountain area of the emerging town came into being. At present, Runzhao Fishery has developed to 11 breeding bases in Sichuan, almost all of which are built along the Longmen Mountains and Qionglai Mountains, and each of them has undergone a one-year rigorous test, "It can be said that Sichuan's good mountains and rivers are the first and most important steps for us to enter the international market."
Digital farming
Science and technology empower the optimal breeding environment
Between the green mountains and green waters, dozens of large pools with a diameter of 20 meters are dotted, and inside are sturgeon at different stages of growth. There is a tree-shaped device every few pools, which divides different "branches" upwards and probes into different water bodies such as water diversion pipes, fish ponds, and drainage pipes downward, and the LED display on the "trunk" is constantly scrolling with real-time data: temperature 135℃；Wind speed 06m/s；Humidity 882%；ph2.5:33ug……"This is a digital monitoring station in the breeding area, each 'branch' is a sensor with different functions, you see only the most basic indicators, we will also regularly update dissolved oxygen, ammonia nitrogen, nitrite, COD (chemical oxygen demand), organic matter concentration and other dozens of data," Li Guangling said.
At the other end of these "trees" is the smart farming system that Runzhao Fishery has invested a lot of money in recent years, "A sturgeon needs to grow for 7-8 years, waiting for sexual maturity before retrieving eggs." Sturgeon have high requirements for the living environment, and once the temperature and water quality change slightly, it is very easy to die. Therefore, in this long cycle, we must ensure that nothing goes wrong", according to Li Jun, smart farming, not only to reduce the demand for labor, but also to achieve all-weather environmental monitoring, the whole process of quality traceability, all-round remote consultation, automatic data analysis, with modern technology to further ensure the stability of the environment, to make up for the lack of traditional farming. It is reported that at present, the company not only installed probes in all fish ponds, but also installed intelligent aeration equipment, intelligent feeding equipment, water control and other devices, technical personnel can view at any time through the mobile phone APP, and can also remotely control the feeding machine and aerator, without manual on-site operation, you can realize monitoring, inspection, consultation, aeration, feeding, water injection and other one-stop operations. At present, the company is striving to create a digital fishery application and promotion base, and in the future, this digital intelligent breeding system will continue to upgrade, and use modern and standardized breeding methods to drive continuous improvement of quality.
Borrow water for water
Let lucid waters and lush mountains support sustainable development
The melted snow water is introduced into large and small fish ponds, where it flows quickly through water pushing equipment to provide sufficient oxygen for schools of fish. "With a continuous large-scale flow pool, the breeding capacity per square meter can reach 50 kilograms, which is more than 30 times that of ordinary water surface aquaculture," Li Guangling told reporters.
Downstream of the fish pond is a large pond with a variety of composite aquatic plants growing lushly. There is mud and sand under the water, aquatic plants in the water, and even green vegetables growing on the water, forming a beautiful and peaceful picture of the water town. "The surplus water after breeding is filtered and bio-purified and then flows back into the river, which is the 'borrowing water for water' model that each of our bases is using. Li Jun still remembers that at the beginning of the company's establishment, the first batch of fish fry introduced, the first batch of fish fry grew well, and the second batch "overturned" - because the water was not changed proportionally, all the fry died after 6 hours of opening, "This gave us a shocking and profound lesson: in the development of the industry, we must save resources and protect the ecology, otherwise it will not be sustainable." ”
With the expansion of the scale of aquaculture, the need for natural cold water is also more and more, Li Jun traveled to domestic aquatic research institutions, as well as France, Russia and other foreign Xi, combined with the climatic characteristics of Sichuan, and finally summed up a set of intensive aquaculture technology in flowing ponds, and at the same time in the way of biological purification, to ensure that all the mountain spring water after breeding meets the discharge standards, and then returns to nature.
The nursery center in Jiuchi Town, Pengzhou, has just completed the upgrade of "recirculating aquaculture". A nursery pond through the pipeline access to the microfilter, the bait, excrement and other coarse particle waste for precision filtration, followed by the water through the biological pool, sedimentation tank, circulating water for absorption and degradation, coarse particle waste for precipitation, and then into the ultraviolet sterilizer, such a cycle, the clean water is re-exported back to the fish pond for reuse, the filtered solid waste can also be collected into organic fertilizer, so as to achieve the "zero discharge" of breeding waste. "This is our direction, in the future, the company will invest more research strength, in the direction of resource protection and conservation, to retain the clear waters and green mountains, so that the sustainable development of the industry. ”
Journalists observe
The environment is the most important thing, which is the basis of sturgeon farming," said Chen Defang, a doctor from the Department of Fisheries, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University.
In Chen Defang's laboratory, the reporter saw a research report on artificial sturgeon farming, due to the characteristics of sturgeon growth, the dependence on the environment is very high, especially the water quality, in the whole breeding process, the water exchange is large, coupled with the quality attributes of caviar as a high-end ingredient itself, which determines that it is necessary to follow its wild laws and find a suitable and stable ecological environment.
During this period of interview, the reporter traveled back and forth to a number of breeding bases of Runzhao Fishery, and felt the charm of "green waters and green mountains" very fully, but what impressed the reporter was more than a sentence from Li Jun, general manager of Runzhao Fishery: "We can enjoy the gifts of nature, but we must not use the predatory extensive mode." "Whether it is the circulating aquaculture system of Pengzhou base or the water return model of Tianquan base, this enterprise born and grown in the lucid waters and green mountains has clearly realized that in the development of the industry, we must save resources and protect the ecology, otherwise it will not be sustainable.
Make good use of lucid waters and lush mountains, but also protect lucid waters and lush mountains, in this regard, Runzhao fishery has made a demonstration. As Dr. Chen Defang commented, standing at the height of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, while developing and utilizing resources, to achieve resource and ecological conservation, this practice has opened up new ideas and directions for aquatic aquaculture.
Chengdu **Jinguan News Reporter Chen Yong Su Xinlin Photography ** Wei Linxiao Editor-in-charge He Qitie.