The Yellow River Rice-Fish Eco-Tourism Park in Juungar Banner, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, has moved more than 20,000 jin—roughly 10 metric tons—of seed crabs raised in-house from rearing ponds into dedicated overwintering ponds, according to a Media OutReach Newswire announcement. The transfer builds a reserve that next year's rice-field polyculture will draw from, marking the third consecutive year the park has produced its own seed crabs and signaling a maturing integrated rice-crab-fish system.
Workers at the park are in the critical stage of concentrated harvest and transfer, hauling up rearing cages and releasing the young crabs into purpose-built overwintering ponds as early winter sets in. The stock will carry the rice fields through next year's growing season. According to Qiao Sheng, who heads agricultural production at the park, raising seed crabs from purchased megalopae lowers stock costs, improves quality control and boosts survival rates. "It makes the rice-crab business steadier and easier to plan," Qiao said. Of this year's 20,000-plus jin, 10,000 jin is earmarked for the park's own rice fields and the rest will be sold, generating returns from both in-house grow-out and external sales.
The development matters because it demonstrates how ecological restoration can underpin industrial transformation. Juungar Banner sits in the heart of the Yellow River's "Ji-shaped bend," with the river running 238 kilometers through the banner—28 percent of its course in Inner Mongolia. As a major source area of coarse sediment for the Yellow River, the banner long suffered severe soil erosion, with eroded land at one point covering more than 70 percent of its total area. Around Xiaotanzi Village in Dalu Town, geology left some 80 percent of the land chronically saline-alkali. Traditional corn fields yielded less than 300 jin per mu, or roughly 2.25 metric tons per hectare, and residents faced a fragile ecology and poor livelihoods.
In 2018, Dalu Town introduced a combined approach of saline-alkali land improvement and integrated rice-fish farming. Ditches were dug to flush salts from the soil, organic fertilizer was worked in, and salt-tolerant rice was planted on a trial basis. By 2022, the park began large-scale operations with an integrated polyculture of rice, crab and fish: the rice shaded the aquatic animals, and their waste fertilized the fields, yielding "three harvests from a single field." This May the park brought in 200 jin of megalopae from Panjin, Liaoning, and released them into the rice paddies to grow out. After a full growing cycle under close management, the park produced more than 20,000 jin of quality seed crabs. Overwintering care is critical to survival, and rates have held steady over the past two winters. Those that come through will return to the paddies next May to be grown to adult size and reach the market in autumn.
The implications extend beyond one park. Xiaotanzi's turnaround from bare saline-alkali waste to "three harvests from one field" is one facet of Juungar Banner's broader shift from ecological governance to industrial transformation. In 2025, the village's collective income surpassed 500,000 yuan, and per-capita income reached 30,000 yuan. For readers, the announcement illustrates a replicable model for saline-alkali regions: combining land improvement with polyculture can stabilize food production, diversify income and reduce pressure on fragile ecosystems. For the aquaculture industry, in-house seed crab production offers a way to manage costs and quality. As 20,000 jin of seed crabs lie quiet in their overwintering ponds, waiting for May, the deeper transformation from "black-grey" to "green" continues across the Yellow River's Ji-shaped bend.
