Frog-rice project helps village jump ahead

A combined cultivation model is creating symbiotic success in the countryside. Ma Zhenhuan reports from Hangzhou.

A highly efficient and sustainable model of the combined cultivation of rice and black-spotted frogs has achieved financial and environmental success in recent years in Chengshan, a village in Changxing county, Huzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

"This symbiotic model had been functioning for a long time before it bore fruit," said Wu Chuanyi, a frog expert who was the first person in the province to receive a license to breed them.

"In 2010, no one had any professional, practical experience in the artificial breeding of black-spotted frogs in China. But out of love and interest, I conducted a small-scale trial," Wu said, adding that he created a special feed for the frogs consisting of fly maggots, earthworms and yellow mealworms.