Chinese Akoya farms suffer near 100% loss of crop and Juvenile Oysters
This is a significant event and will effect the pearl market for the next 2 years
There are 500 households culture
Akoya oysters in Bigwell village, leading pearl farmers are Li Er, Xie Linfa,
Li Zhaoli, Xie Yongxin and so on. More than 100,000,000 Akoya oysters died
Those farmers have been picking died oysters on their farms to take out
immature pearls for 7 days. They sell those pearls to pharmaceutical
factories and arts & crafts studios. Unit price is at 800 yuan(US$125) per
kilogram
Zhanjiang Hit by Worst Downpour in 200 Years
Typhoon Pabuk has wreaked havoc in Zhanjiang, a coastal city of South China, bringing in the heaviest showers in two centuries.
Heavy rainfall has affected 1.17 million people in Zhanjiang and the cities of Maoming and Meizhou, causing economic losses of 1.34 billion yuan (US$176 million), Xinhua reported yesterday.
Floods have damaged a long stretch of the Zhanjiang-Leizhou Highway and the Guangdong-Hainan Railway, forcing the cancellation of a number of trains.
The Tangjia Township in Leizhou has been the worst hit, receiving 739 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, the heaviest in 200 years.
Dead Oysters
From August 10th to August 13th, 2007, No.7 typhoon, Pabuk attacked Leizhou Peninsula, Zhanjiang , it had been pouring rain excessively for four days. Flood with red soil which contains virus rapidly flowed into waters where Akoya pearl oysters are being cultured, pearls are about to be harvested in September and December. Ninety-five per cent of Akoya oysters died suddenly in Bigwell( 大井村Dajing/Dwajor/ Dyegon ) village，Xuwen County, nickname as No.1 Akoya pearl Village in China, What’s worse, 100 percent of Akoya oysters died in Qishui, Leizhou. Most farmers in Bigwell village got loans from the bank, some borrowed their relative’s money to invest in the pearl farm. Xie Shixue, one of the leading pearl farmers in Bigwell village was frightened to shock for a day and he woke after being injected medication, all of his Akoya oysters died, he lost two million yuan /RMB in this disaster.
Total amount of loss of pearls is 500 million yuan in Zhanjiang. All cultured fish, shrimp and mussels died. Aquaculture industry has been destroyed in this typhoon flood in Zhanjiang. Estimated loss amounts to 7 billion yuan.
Akoya oysters survived only about 400 million, so successful pearl oysters to be harvested left only 2 tons at the end of this year. Less than 10 tons of the previous year. Obviously, the price of Akoya pearls from Zhanjiang, China will rise by 25 percent in winter and next spring. On behalf of all pearl farmers in Zhanjiang, I heartfelt appeal to generous businesspeople who have loving kindness in developed countries donate money to save unfortunate pearl farmers, support them to recover facilities for culturing pearl oysters. Their children would not afford expensive tuitions for higher education in September if nobody donates money to them.
Pearls from dead oysters.
It is true. We lost 700,000 shell.
The storm dumped too much freshwater into the bay and the salinity of the
water dropped drastically. Even dropping the shells 5 meters could not save
them all. The fish farms lost nearly 100%.
Anyway, things happen, it is part of the life of pearl farming. It is sad,
but it is by no means the end. We are going to start grafting again in the
next few months.
Harvesting dead oysters
This is a picture of the devastation at a fish farm in Xuwen.
There are no shells in the area to purchase yet either, it will all have to
come from hatchery or stock brought in from elsewhere.
If the farmers can re-nucleate and get shell in the water quickly, while
they will not have anything to harvest this coming Winter, they will still
have a future.
I am not sure what they are going to do with all the prematurely harvested
akoya, though. There is not much of a market for it here.
I think akoya smaller than 7mm is going to be scarce in 2008...
a cloud hangs over the Akoya pearl industry
