On October 26-30, at the invitation of Miaoli County Hairy Crab Culture and Development Association, Wang Xiping, DeputyParty Secretary and Vice President of Shanghai Ocean University (SOU),accompanied by Chen Zaizhong, Associate Dean of the College of Fishery and LifeScience and Prof. Cheng Yongxu, inspected the hairy crab culture in Miaoli County, Taiwan.
On the 27th, while participating in theannual Miaoli County hairy crab tasting activity, the expert team consisting ofexperts from SOU, Miaoli County Commission of Agriculture and FisheryCommission evaluated the hairy crabs in terms of appearance, taste and fullnessand set up three prizes. At the prize-awarding ceremony, Xu Yaochang,magistrate of Miaoli County, thanked SOU for the help it has provided for thebreeding and quality promotion of hairy crabs in Miaoli County since 2011. Inhis speech, Wang Xiping fully affirmed the achievements of the cooperationbetween the two sides over the past six years and placed great hope on thetraining of technical personnel and personnel exchanges. Professor Cheng Yongxuintroduced how to select hairy crabs to the crab farmers and staff attendingthe conference, and even cited the classic poems in A Dream of Red Mansions tovividly interpret the gourmet culture about hairy crabs.
Afterwards, SOU leaders and their entouragewent to the breeding bases having crab cooperation projects with SOU and heldcordial conversations with the crab farmers and the director and members of theAssociation of Hairy Crab Breeding and Development. Since October 15, 2011 whenSOU and Miaoli County government formally signed a technological cooperationagreement on Chinese mitten crab breeding, the technology of crab farming inMiaoli County has been generally improved, and the quality of the farmed hairycrabs and the scale of farming has also been continuously expanded. The directeconomic income increased from about NTD 50 million in 2012 to more than NTD100 million this year, having achieved 5 “firsts” in Taiwan: cross-straitcooperation, crab seed import quarantine, special-purpose feed, on-sitetechnical guidance and anti-fake crab ring certification, and breaking thetraditional thinking that river crabs cannot be farmed at latitudes below 28 °.
Accompanied by Huang Yixun, Director ofDepartment of Aquaculture Sciences, National Taiwan Ocean University, SOU leadersand the delegation inspected the Aquatic Animal Experimental Center whichconsists of an automated water-circulating aquaculture laboratory, a seedlingcultivation laboratory, a seedling intermediate breeding laboratory, fresh-waterornamental fish laboratory, seawater ornamental fish laboratory, large displayaquarium and power room. With the joint efforts of professional teachers andstudent volunteers, it has become an important platform for teaching practice,training, innovation and cultural display. Wang Xiping highly appraised thewell-organized and effective management measures of the center and hoped todraw on lessons for the construction and management of SOU’s 2nd campusin Binhai and the College of Fishery and Life Sciencelaboratory.