絳

Into the urban maw
Soaring demand for protein is driving xxx  to professionalise
A few of the remaining patches of dry ground are occupied by
the landscape glints and ripples. 
a forward-looking
feeding on the nutritious dust.
’s watery holdings expanded
with better feed and cultivation methods
become so plentiful and so cheap that nobody bothers.
Many things have helped it to grow, 
has doubled in size  since
are booming, too.
represent a huge, fast-growing market for
not to mention less finicky about standards
. With more money than villagers and longer journeys to work, 
they favour tasty, quick-cooking, protein-rich fare. 
are eaten domestically. 
Many are packed, wriggling or dead, into blue plastic barrels and driven to the cities. 
has found similar trends in
The task of feeding that huge population has not been accomplished by the government,by charities or by foreign agricultural investors.
It is the work of
the fish boom has changed many people’s lives. 
and the demand is year-round.
is rarer in the watery districts. 
points to another advantage.
drove up the cost of
But his main problem is that the market is oversupplied.
In effect, he is a victim of
at any time.
That problem is not specific to aquaculture, or to
that rivals the fishy one.
calculates that
The quantity of
There is little reason to expect growth to slow down. 
In some ways
are more likely to be wealthy, well-connected urbanites.
play a large role, too.
clusters around
But the parallels are more striking than the differences. 
s is estimated to have between and
are notoriously unreliable. 
In both countries the industries are becoming more professional. 
hich is less wasteful than the sinking kind. 
is still a dusty work in progress
had escaped through a hole in the fence.
studied agriculture and business at
to smaller outfits.
complain bitterly about
In a final parallel,
has been flooded by
the rising price of feed and a surge in domestic production.
It is hard to know for sure, though, because official statistics are so poor. 
have little idea what their competitors are producing, so they find it hard to predict what price their produce might fetch at market. 
detailed annual figures on
would help enormously
So would a certification system.
The lack of standards even causes problems at home. 
Both appeared to be nonsense.
But the pressure on farmers is making them inventive. 
When he shines his torch in,
it is a delicacy that
It is an expensive, technically complex way of
for the most common fish. 
is an intriguing way of coping with
However much farmers struggle with the consequences of their success, it is a far nicer problem than the one they used to grapple with.
dips his hand into