Soft-Shelled Turtles Boost Rural Revitalization in Yushe, Shanxi

With spring breeze blowing gently and clear water rippling, plump and lively soft-shelled turtles swim leisurely in Yunzhu Lake, Yushe County, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province—sometimes popping their heads out of the water to look around, sometimes crawling onto the beach to enjoy the warm sun. Hailed as "ginseng in the water", soft-shelled turtles have become a key driver of rural revitalization here, transforming from a local delicacy into a pillar industry that enriches villagers, according to Xinhua News Network.

In recent years, Yushe County has focused on cultivating characteristic industries and made sustained efforts in soft-shelled turtle breeding. Ren Jingmin, chairman of Yushe Sanhe Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Co., Ltd. (Sanhe Agriculture), returned to his hometown after retiring from the military in 2018 and took over his father’s turtle breeding business, starting with a single earthen pond and gradually building a standardized breeding base.

"We follow the natural growth rules of soft-shelled turtles, allowing them to hibernate in winter and grow vigorously in summer," Ren Jingmin said. The company feeds the turtles with natural fresh fish and shrimp from Yunzhu Lake as well as high-nutrition complete feed, and uses quicklime and bleaching powder to purify water alternately every half month without using any chemicals or growth promoters, maximizing the simulation of a wild living environment. Each market-ready turtle is nourished by the natural running water of Yunzhu Lake and has a growth cycle of 3 to 5 years, resulting in firm and tender meat.

Technology has become a "golden key" for high-quality breeding. Two years ago, Sanhe Agriculture joined hands with the aquatic expert team from Shanxi Agricultural University, which has long been engaged in aquatic breeding research and technical guidance in Shanxi Province. The team solved the problem of white hair on turtle shells caused by thin water and microecological imbalance by adopting the method of "cultivating water first, then raising turtles"—extracting water from Yunzhu Lake and using soybean milk to cultivate plankton and beneficial bacteria before releasing seedlings.

The company also innovated the "greenhouse-supported canvas fish pond" model, which does not require digging ponds or destroying farmland. "The stable temperature in the greenhouse allows turtles to start feeding earlier and stop feeding later, extending the feeding period by two months a year and shortening the growth cycle to two and a half years," Ren added, realizing increased production and efficiency.

To drive villagers’ income growth, Yushe County has adopted the "company + cooperative + farmer breeding" benefit linkage model relying on Sanhe Agriculture, according to Shanxi Daily. Chen Jiamei, a villager from Yuncu Village, now works at the breeding base, earning over 3,000 yuan a month while taking care of her children. Up to now, the county has built a 50,000-square-meter breeding base with a breeding scale of 500,000 turtles, providing stable jobs for more than 70 local villagers and helping village collectives increase annual income by over 500,000 yuan.

Yushe County has built a complete industrial chain integrating breeding, processing, sales and cultural tourism integration. "The significance of enterprise development lies not only in becoming bigger and stronger, but also in leading villagers to get rich together, letting small soft-shelled turtles support people’s livelihood," said Yang Lijing, general manager of Sanhe Agriculture. The turtle industry has become a characteristic business card for rural revitalization at the foot of the Taihang Mountains.