An aquaculturist from Zhejiang Aquatic Seed Industry Co Ltd in Huzhou's Deqing county. [Photo/hz66.com]

Efforts made by Huzhou's Deqing county to facilitate the digital upgrading of its aquaculture industry have been paying dividends. 

Zhejiang Aquatic Seed Industry Co Ltd is one of the beneficiaries of the digital upgrading campaign initiated by the county in early 2020.

The company has sold nearly 700 million shrimp seedlings so far this year, with the revenue generated being 30 percent higher than the same period in 2022. The sales volume is expected to grow 40 percent year-on-year to more than 900 million by the end of May, according to the company.

The new shrimp farm management mode adopted by the Deiqing-based company is the main reason behind the significant growth, according to Yang Hao, a manager at the company.

As a pioneer in Zhejiang when it comes to exploring the construction of digitalized fisheries, Zhejiang Aquatic Seed Industry Co Ltd ventured into smart shrimp farming in 2020 and has completed the digital transformation of the entire industrial process from seedling cultivation to sales. Such efforts have helped the company improve production efficiency and standardization.

Each nursery at the company, for example, now has a system that allows people to retrieve data related to water, temperature, air and diseases in real time, Yang said.

It took the company only three years after it was founded in August 2018 to become a heavyweight in the domestic seedling industry. A new facility featuring an updated biological farming technology will be put into operation this September, the company said.