For many years, Liaoning sea cucumber has been a well-known brand of sea cucumber in China, renowned for its unique quality that stands out nationwide. Recently, a visit to Liaoning, the main production area of Liaoning sea cucumber, revealed that although the yield of sea cucumber is good, the price has been continuously falling, reaching the lowest point in many years this year, greatly affecting the income of farmers. The reasons are, on one hand, the intensification of cutthroat competition in the breeding end, and on the other hand, the market is flooded with finished sea cucumbers from various places, falsely claiming to be Liaoning sea cucumber, which has impacted the brand value of Liaoning sea cucumber.
Industry insiders believe that efforts should be made to support enterprises in extending the industrial chain, accelerating the formulation of industry standards, and strengthening breeding at the source, in order to protect the brand value of Liaoning sea cucumber.
Workers are sorting sea cucumber products in the production workshop. Photo material.
The price of sea cucumber is "continuously falling"
The reporter came to a large sea cucumber breeding base in Jianye Township, Linghai City, Jinzhou, in front of the pond of farmer Li Zhisheng. He said to the reporter: At this time of the year, 1 jin of 5-head sea cucumber could be sold for sixty to seventy yuan, but now it has dropped to 27 yuan per jin and is not easy to sell. "I have been breeding sea cucumber for more than 20 years, and I have never seen such a low price." Li Zhisheng told the reporter that he contracted a hundred acres of sea cucumber circle, which can produce about 20,000 jin of sea cucumber a year. If it were not for his excellent breeding technology, he would not be able to recover the cost of a year's work now.
Janye Township has a total of more than 480 sea cucumber farmers, who calculated an account for the reporter: a hundred acres of breeding sea cucumber circle, with an average annual output of 15,000 jin of sea cucumber, calculated at the current price of sea cucumber, the annual income is only 400,000 yuan, while the cost of seedlings, labor, feed, sea area usage fee and other various costs exceed 450,000 yuan. At present, many farmers can only "tough it out" and are in a dilemma.
A Liaoning sea cucumber industry network anchor with more than 100,000 fans said that both online and offline sales of sea cucumber have encountered a "cold winter". A few years ago, it was common for his network live broadcast to sell more than one million yuan per game, but now, at most, he can only sell tens of thousands of yuan per live broadcast.
Cutthroat competition leads to a "price war"
The reporter learned in Dalian Wafangdian, Yingkou, Jinzhou Linghai and other main production areas of Liaoning sea cucumber that the price of sea cucumber has reached the lowest in history, mainly for the following three reasons.
- Cutthroat competition. Many farmers told the reporter that more than 10 years ago, most of the sea cucumber in the country was produced in Dalian, Liaoning. In recent years, some places outside Liaoning have bought Dalian seedlings and raised sea cucumber locally, and sea cucumber production has become "blooming everywhere".Li Zhisheng recalls that in recent years, many people from other places have come to buy Liaoning sea cucumber seedlings. They purchase large quantities of sea cucumber seedlings that have been cultured for about one and a half to two years and then transport them to the southern sea areas for cage culture. Farmers have introduced that the water temperature in the southern regions is high, and sea cucumbers can be mature in less than half a year of cultivation. Then, they are transported back to Liaoning and labeled as "Liao Sea Cucumber" to sell at the same price as Liao Sea Cucumber.
— Consumption reduction. The person in charge of a sea cucumber breeding garden in Liaoning told reporters: "Every Spring Festival, our industrial park has to make at least ten thousand sea cucumber gift boxes for the holiday market sales. So far this year, only a few hundred have been sold. Now, no matter how cheap it is, 'gifting' is unwanted."
— Mixed quality. The sea cucumber products are mixed, and bad money drives out good money, which objectively accelerates the decline in sea cucumber prices. Farmers said that more than ten years ago, when they first invested, they could "make money with their eyes closed." After that, a large number of new farmers entered the industry, and extreme weather occurred frequently, which intensified industry fluctuations and inevitably damaged the industry's ecology.
In the summer of 2018, Liaoning experienced long periods of high temperature and humidity over a wide area, causing many farmers to lose their entire harvest and a significant decline in production. Some illegal processors and traders went to other production areas to purchase sea cucumbers and transported them back to Liaoning to sell as Dalian sea cucumbers. In fact, the phenomenon of counterfeiting "Liao Sea Cucumber" and substituting inferior products for better ones occurs from time to time. In recent years, live streaming e-commerce has been booming, and inferior sea cucumbers have also begun to appear on online platforms in large quantities. Due to their extremely low prices, they quickly occupy the market, further deteriorating the industry's ecology.
When will Liao Sea Cucumber have standards?
Many farmers and industry experts believe that there are still gaps in the product standards and brand protection for Liao Sea Cucumber. The following three aspects should be strengthened as soon as possible to protect the value of the century-old Liao Sea Cucumber brand.
First, support enterprises to extend the industrial chain and increase added value. Journalists learned that due to the lack of deep processing enterprises for sea cucumbers in the local area, most of the sea cucumbers bred in Liaoning are currently purchased by merchants from other places and then processed into dried sea cucumbers for sale. Farmers introduced that 30 kilograms of fresh sea cucumbers can be made into 1 kilogram of dried sea cucumbers. According to the current purchase price of fresh sea cucumbers, the selling price of 30 kilograms of sea cucumbers is less than 1,000 yuan, while the market sales price of dried sea cucumbers reaches 3,500 to 3,600 yuan per kilogram. Some big brands can even sell a kilogram of sea cucumber for more than ten thousand yuan. The short industrial chain and lack of deep processing capacity severely affect the added value of Liao Sea Cucumber.
"Although the current sea cucumber market is not good, dried sea cucumber has a long shelf life and occupies less storage space. If we have our own processing capabilities, we can completely make fresh sea cucumbers into dried sea cucumbers and sell them on the market when the market is good," said Zhu Hengwei, the president of the Dalian Wafangdian Sea Cucumber Association. He suggested building a processing enterprise incubation base, extending the processing industrial chain, accelerating the construction of industrial agglomeration areas, and achieving industrial upgrading through "extending the chain, complementing the chain, and strengthening the chain." Relevant government departments should introduce special industrial support policies to promote the innovative development of the entire industrial chain of Liaoning seafood represented by sea cucumber seedling breeding, deep processing, sales docking, and brand building.
Second, formulate industry standards to ensure the quality of Liao Sea Cucumber and protect brand value. Farmers such as Li Zhisheng said that as old farmers who have been breeding sea cucumbers for more than 20 years, they cannot distinguish the authenticity of Liao Sea Cucumber on the market at a glance. Regarding the current situation of uneven online prices and huge quality differences of sea cucumbers, interviewed industry insiders suggested that relevant departments should strictly manage the sea cucumber market and increase the punishment for behaviors that substitute inferior products for better ones and counterfeit with fake products.
The interviewees suggested that relevant departments could take the lead in formulating Liao Sea Cucumber standards, making clear provisions on salt content, protein content, iron content, and important nutritional substances such as polysaccharide content, and granting geographical identification certification to increase the brand value of Liao Sea Cucumber. Organic sea cucumber certification could be considered to cultivate organic green industries and increase the supply of high-quality seafood.Thirdly, strengthen breeding at the source to improve quality. Zhu Hengwei suggests that the sea cucumber industry should carry out selection and hybrid breeding work, strive to break through polyploid breeding, molecular marker-assisted breeding, and gene editing breeding, create a batch of high-yielding and stress-resistant excellent varieties, establish demonstration bases for the breeding and promotion of new varieties, promote good varieties, and continuously enhance the quality of Liaoning sea cucumbers.