Bamboo rat waiting for sentencing
China News Weekly reporter / Gu Xin
Published in the 942th issue of China News Weekly in 2020.4.6
On January 22, on the 28th of the New Year, Xie Fujie, a villager in Gu and other villages in Pingle County, Guilin City, was holding a New Year's Day product in a large gathering, but he received a call from a reporter in Beijing. The reporter told him that New Coronary Pneumonia may be carried by wild animals, such as bamboo rats. Xie Fujie was a big bamboo rat farmer. In the past few days, the last batch of commercial rats on his farm had just been sold out. After buying the new year, he went home and wrote the deputy spring couplets, "The year of the rat is rich in peasants and the farmers are prosperous. ", Posted on the gate of his bamboo farm.
The next day, the people from the Forestry Bureau came to the door and informed him that the bamboo rats could not be sold or eaten, and no one except the workers could enter or leave the farm.
Xie Fujie discovered that the day before the Beijing reporter called himself, the state issued an emergency notice prohibiting the reselling of wild animals that might carry new coronaviruses, such as bamboo rats and badgers.
Throughout the Spring Festival, Xie Fujie paid close attention to related news. On the afternoon of February 24, the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress voted to pass the "Decision on the Comprehensive Prohibition of Illegal Wildlife Trading, the Elimination of the Abuse of Wild Animals, and the Effective Protection of People's Health and Safety." The "Decision" comprehensively prohibits the trading and consumption of wild animals, including terrestrial wild animals with important ecological, scientific and social values protected by the state.
This means that the entire special breeding industry will usher in a huge shift, including the artificial breeding of bamboo rats is likely to no longer be allowed to serve on the table. The news of Xie Fujie's circle of friends was flying around. He discussed the next steps with Liu Kejun, a senior livestock minister of the Livestock Research Institute of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the technical guidance of his farm.
Guangxi is a large bamboo rat breeding farm. According to Liu Kejun ’s estimation, there are 100,000 people in the autonomous region engaged in the bamboo rat breeding industry, with a stock of 18 million and an output value of 2 billion yuan, accounting for 70% of the country.
"As early as January 20, Professor Zhong Nanshan said that the new coronavirus may be derived from bamboo rats and badgers." Recalling the turning point in this industry storm, Liang Qiubo, head of Guilin Qiubo Bamboo Mouse Company, told China News Weekly.
But the storage and abandonment of special farming is far from being as simple as an expert's sentence. Behind it is the game of interests between the economic value of wild animals and public safety. The special breeding industry has always been in the awkward reality of being promoted by the local government while having to walk in the gray area.
Now in Guangxi, Xie Fujie, Liang Qiubo and many small farmers put their last hope on the "white list". The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is drafting a new "Catalogue of Animal Genetic Resources". According to the "Decision" of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, terrestrial wild animals included in the catalog of livestock and poultry genetic resources are subject to the provisions of the "Livestock Law" and are not subject to the "prohibition of wilderness orders".
Bamboo rat can't help? If forbidden, what about the follow-up compensation plan? The 18 million bamboo rats in Guangxi and their owners are still awaiting notification.
"Retired" industry
Every morning at nine o'clock, Xie Fujie drove to the breeding base. Last year, he took out all his savings, borrowed another 1 million from banks and private companies, and collected 4 million, all invested in this 2,876 square meter bamboo rat breeding base. The base has three large workshops, each room is lined with rows of 60 cm square cubicles, each housing one to ten different numbers of bamboo rats. The three workers shuttled between them, feeding tens of thousands of bamboo rats in a small house together for seven or eight hours a day.
The year before last, Xie Fujie created a set of manure transport equipment and used a mechanized conveyor belt to automatically send the rat dung in the cell to the outside. This won him an autonomous region migrant worker entrepreneurial competition. Xie Fujie said he was very proud.
Xie Fujie's breeding base originally consisted of 7 workers, including 5 poor households in the village who had filed cards. During the epidemic, in order to save money, he only called three people to work. Even so, the daily feed cost is more than 1,000 yuan, plus labor is 2,000 yuan.
In the morning, the workers cooked several hundred kilograms of rice twice, mixed it with bran and corn, and made fine food for bamboo rats. In the evening, the bamboo rat has to eat a coarse meal, either bamboo recovered from a nearby village, or a piece of wood sawn from aging shatian teak in its own orchard. The ratio of coarse grains to fine grains is about 8 to 1. In order to save costs, Xie Fujie let workers feed more bamboo and wood, less corn, and increase the proportion of bran.
While the workers were busy feeding and cleaning, Xie Fujie inspected the base to check whether the bamboo rats were fighting or injured, and the immobile bamboo rats were sick or indigested. Every half a month, the bamboo rat has to be checked to check whether the female rat is in a pregnant state and is suitable for the next round of mating. On the day the New Year's 29th Forestry Bureau came to the house, Xie Fujie was doing routine inspections for bamboo rats.
Xie Fujie, 37, has a junior high school education. He had planted Shatian pomelo before raising bamboo rats. Before 2005, Xie Fujie's income mainly came from more than 100 acres of Shatian pomelo. The harvest was a good income of two to three hundred thousand a year. However, after the grapefruit became infected, the output dropped sharply and Xie Fujie had to seek transformation.
Xie Fujie's bamboo rats are well-bred, and he will put the pregnant mother mouse in a separate room for easy inspection at any time. The bamboo rats of other people's homes are pregnant three times a year, and the bamboo rats of his homes can be pregnant four times.
Xie Fujie calculated the account for China News Weekly, "The pregnancy period of the female rats is 47 to 50 days, weaned one month after the litter, rest well, and can enter the next round of mating in a few days." A bamboo rat can produce 10 to 12 cubs per year. In recent years, the bamboo rat market has become popular, and prices have risen steadily. According to the memories of Liu Kejun, a senior livestock minister of the Animal Husbandry Research Institute of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in 2002, bamboo rats could not be sold, and prices fluctuated greatly. Since 2013, the purchase price has stabilized at 60, 70 yuan and 1 catty, and the market is in short supply. Xie Fujie caught up with this trend. He sold more than 10,000 bamboo rats last year and last year. Until the epidemic, there were as many middlemen as they needed to buy bamboo rats. If it is not the epidemic, Xie Fujie expects his annual output value to reach 4 million yuan this year.
Recently, Xie Fujie cleared out his own plot and planted sugar cane. Bamboo rats do not drink water, they can only extract water from sugar cane and pasture. "This year I planted about a month later than in previous years because I was waiting for policies." He told China News Weekly.
Since the epidemic, people from the Forestry Bureau have come several times to supervise the sale. In Xie Fujie's farm, 2,000 bamboo rats have matured, but they can't take off their hands.
He still went to the base as usual at nine every day. Bank accounts are also automatically deducted and repaid at a 5% interest rate. "In the countryside, there is no other way than to raise is to breed." He lamented "China News Weekly".
Poverty alleviation
The bamboo rat breeding industry awaiting sentencing was once a case of local propaganda for getting rich, and it has appeared on CCTV's seven sets of "Daily Agricultural Classics" and "Getting Rich". In Guangxi, bamboo rats are the key supporting industries for poverty alleviation. In 2018, the Guangxi Poverty Alleviation Office issued the "Notice on Implementing Poverty Alleviation and Promoting Poverty Alleviation in Characteristic Industries", which clearly listed bamboo rats as the county-level "5 + 2" and village-level "3 + 1" characteristic industries. According to the notice, impoverished households in Guangxi can receive a subsidy ranging from 56 yuan to 120 yuan for raising a bamboo rat, while raising a chicken can only get 7-15 yuan.
Liu Kejun told "China News Weekly" that at present, among the bamboo rat employees in Guangxi, poor households account for 18%. By means of financial subsidies at various levels, loans from farmers, leading enterprises and wealth leaders, about 20,000 people have got rid of poverty through bamboo rat breeding.
Liang Qiubo was put into breeding bamboo rats in 2005. He recalled that around 2007, the local government began to provide support policies to help him repair roads in farms, build farm houses, and buy seedlings. "The government always says that it is responsible and responsible to bring more poor households." Xie Fujie told China News Weekly.
In 2015, Xie Fujie set up a cooperative in the village, which led 132 poor households in the village to join the army of bamboo and rat raising. The cooperative provides seedlings to the village, conducts technical training and on-site guidance, and recycles the commercial rats after the bamboo rats are raised. The recovery price is two yuan higher than the farmer ’s own market. The products of the cooperative have entered the list of the second batch of livestock, poultry and aquatic products released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. This move was also used as a typical propaganda by local government departments and the media.
Liu Kejun introduced that the bamboo rat belongs to the short-term fast project. It was raised at the beginning of the year, and the benefits were seen in the middle of the year. A three-pound big rat can sell 150 to 200 yuan, and the cost of 50 yuan can be cut off. One can only earn more than 100 yuan. Poor households invested 5,000 yuan to breed 10 pairs of bamboo rats, and one year later they can grow to 50 pairs. The profit in the second year can reach more than 10,000 yuan. In comparison, raising a cow costs 8,000 to 10,000, and the profit margin is only 20% to 25%.
The threshold for bamboo rat breeding is also low. It has low site requirements, and can be used for factory breeding and family breeding. Bamboo rats take bamboo, miscanthus, and corn as the main food. The food is cheap and can be self-grown. The cost of each bamboo rat is only 0.2 yuan per day, and there is little need for capital investment from farmers. Because bamboo rats do not drink water and suffer from fewer illnesses, they rarely need to be vaccinated or antibiotics when they grow up, and the labor is low. The elderly, the handicapped, the disabled, the veterans, and the returning youth can all be raised.
Gu and other villages are located in the mountains in the northeast corner of Guangxi, more than 70 kilometers away from the county town. Most local farmers choose to plant trees and fruits. After the first planting of Shatian pomelo, the most important economic crop in the region, the fruit can only be produced in three or four years, and only once a year. But farmed bamboo rats can be sold all year round.
In recent years, commodity rats have been in short supply. For the above reasons, bamboo rat breeding in Guangxi is very common.
On March 22, the relevant person in charge of the Poverty Alleviation Office of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region went to Xie Fujie's farm to investigate. "The main thing is to understand what should we do if we can't support it? And how much impact will it have on poverty alleviation." Xie Fujie told China News Weekly.
Quarantine vacancy
There is a disinfection pond at the entrance of Xie Fujie's bamboo rat breeding area. You must walk through the disinfection pond before entering each time. After the outbreak, he disinfected the breeding base once a week. Xie Fujie referred to the standards of pig farms, "but many small farmers in the village did not disinfect and found no abnormalities."
Liang Qiubo told China News Weekly that raising bamboo and rats is better than raising chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep without vaccinations. "Poultry has avian flu, and there will be no epidemic in bamboo rats." He attributed this to the resistance of bamboo rats. But it also exposed the general lack of awareness of epidemic prevention among bamboo rat farmers. Regardless of whether it is poultry or livestock, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has formulated a complete set of feeding standards. Farmers need to select seeds according to the regulations, build feeding places, regularly vaccinate and disinfect. "The bamboo rat has been dragged down." Xie Fujie believes this is the biggest dilemma for bamboo rat farmers.
Although the Autonomous Region Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision approved the formation of local standards such as the "Scale of Silver Star Bamboo Rat Farm Construction" and "Technical Specification of Silver Star Bamboo Rat Feeding" in recent years, in practice, most farmers have followed their own experience Come.
The Peking University Shanshui Nature Conservation Center has published an article saying that in many cases, the inspection and quarantine of live animals or raw meat not only depends on the symptoms of live animals / raw meat, but third-party testing companies will also pass feed formulas, feeding environments, equipment The breeder and the veterinary drugs used to determine the animal's possible risk of disease (or drug residues). While doing all the routine items, focus on certain items as a reference. It's like if the doctor knows that you usually have a lot of salt intake, you will consider checking if you have cardiovascular disease. Because wild animals can't trace any breeding information, it is more difficult to detect the epidemic, and it is also difficult to trace the source after the epidemic occurs.
China's current Wildlife Protection Law divides wild animals into three categories: national key protected animals, local key protected animals and animals with important scientific research, economic and social values. The last item is "three animals". Belongs to "three animals". Before the "Decision" was issued on February 24 this year, the current Wildlife Protection Law only prohibited the consumption of key state-protected animals, and there were no prohibitive provisions on the consumption of artificially-bred "three animals" such as "bamboo rats."
As the "three animals", the bamboo rat is under the supervision of the forestry department. The farms of Liang Qiubo and Xie Fujie have obtained the industrial and commercial license and the domestication and breeding license and wild animal operation and utilization license issued by the forestry department. However, breeding bamboo rats for food purposes must involve inflows into the market. Once sales, transportation, slaughtering, and management are involved, it is not only a matter of applying the Wildlife Protection Law, but also the Epidemic Prevention Law.
According to Article 42 of the Epidemic Prevention Law, before slaughtering, selling or transporting animals, and selling or transporting animal products, the consignor shall declare quarantine to the local animal health supervision agency in accordance with the regulations of the competent veterinary department of the State Council. The State Council issued a notice prohibiting food producers from buying, selling and using meat without legal sources and without "two certificates and two chapters" (animal quarantine certificate, meat quality inspection certificate, animal quarantine certificate, meat Qualified quality inspection seal).
According to Article 4 of the "Administrative Measures on Animal Quarantine", in China, the scope, objects and procedures of animal quarantine are formulated, adjusted and published by the Ministry of Agriculture. At present, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has only promulgated the "Quality Quarantine Regulations" ". Terrestrial wild animals such as bamboo rats have traditionally been divided into the management of the forestry department, and the forestry department has no experience in food animal quarantine, resulting in what Xie Fujie said "the forestry bureau does not care, the agriculture bureau does not care." situation. "Legal" wild animals are first-rate to the market, that is, "illegal" products without quarantine certification.
Why quarantine matters
In the last order before the Spring Festival, Xie Fujie called the middleman, and the other party drove the van to pick up the goods. The bamboo rats were transported to Guangdong in a cage without any proof.
Xie Fujie recalled that before 2015 or 2016, the transportation of bamboo rats still requires a transportation permit. The transportation within the province requires a license in the county, and if the province is cross-provincial, it must be issued to the municipal administrative department. A quarantine certificate is not required for issuing a transportation certificate, and it is sufficient to bring a business license. Later, the relevant department issued a document and the transportation within the province was cancelled.
In 2016, the transportation department of Guangxi had requested the transportation of artificially domesticated terrestrial wild animals such as snakes, bamboo rats, porcupines, etc., to be transported on the basis of the Certificate of Animal Quarantine. After the farmer reported the situation to the Animal Husbandry Bureau, the Animal Husbandry Bureau and the Forestry Department issued a letter to the transportation department of Guangxi, requesting the transportation department to refrain from showing The requirements of animal quarantine certificate. Hundreds of bamboo rats from the breeding base were packed together in cages and transported to Hunan and Guangdong, where they reached local middlemen, where they were intensively farmed and sent to various wholesale markets and restaurants. Restaurants often slaughtered alive. The entire breeding, trading and consumption process lacks quarantine.
The Peking University Shanshui Nature Conservation Center published an article that pointed out that this lack of quarantine transportation process may cause danger. "Some studies have shown that animals are easy to release viruses when they are stressed. At present, the game market and the previous breeding and transportation processes This kind of environment that mixes species that are not normally seen in various places and has extremely poor hygienic conditions is suitable for the mutation and recombination of viruses carried by animals, especially single-strand unstable RNA viruses. "
At the press conference of the Joint Defense and Joint Control Mechanism of the State Council on February 27, Han Xu, deputy director of the Fisheries and Fisheries Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, introduced which animals can be counted as livestock and poultry: mainly referring to human beings to satisfy meat, eggs, milk, Furs and other animals that have been domesticated through long-term labor. Four points need to be met: first, after long-term artificial breeding, and widely used in production; second, its phenotype and wild animals have undergone essential changes, with stable artificial selection of economic traits; third, stable disease prevention and control has been formed System; Fourth, it is in line with international practice.
Quarantine standards should be an important basis for entering the "white list". Zhao Xiang, a professor at the Peking University Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, believes that when wild animals enter the “white list”, they must meet two requirements: First, from the perspective of public safety, they must have quarantine procedures and a complete quarantine system, or at least work on the above There is a clear time plan; second, from the perspective of wildlife protection, artificial reproduction must not have a negative impact on wild populations.
Ma Yong, deputy secretary general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, also believes that safety and maturity of aquaculture technology are the key to entering the "white list." A standard quarantine process requires quarantine standards, quarantine personnel, and quarantine technical equipment, and finally a quarantine certification is formed. Humans have been domesticating chickens, ducks, cows and sheep for thousands of years, and have formed a relatively complete epidemic prevention system. However, they are still plagued by swine fever and bird flu.
Ma Yong explained to "China News Weekly" that poultry and livestock have undergone a long domestication process, and have established a relatively complete epidemic prevention and quarantine system. The artificial domestication of bamboo rats is only 30 years old. The current scientific research on the clinical observation of wild animal diseases and disease research is still too little. From the perspective of ensuring public health safety, it is difficult to introduce quarantine standards in the short term.
This means that the prospect of bamboo rats entering the "white list" is not yet optimistic. The bamboo rat breeding that used to be at the policy outlet may be faced with the problem of the transformation of the entire industry. However, the transformation requires costs. Xie Fujie has calculated an account. If his bamboo rat breeding base is transformed into a pig farm, he will need to spend at least 800,000 yuan to transform. In addition, he still has a loan. It will take 16 years for him to earn back Initial investment.
China News Weekly, Issue 12, 2020
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is subject to written authorization