'Golden industry'

Sun started her career with crabs in the 1990s. Now she contracts more than 67 hectares to breed and farm the crustacean with annual output reaching about 100 tons.

She is not the only farmer now benefiting from the crab industry. In Panjin, about 120,000 people are engaged in the "golden industry", she said.

According to the Ocean and Fisheries Bureau of Panjin, the city's crab cultivation area was 100,000 hectares with an annual output of 51,000 tons, valued at 2.8 billion yuan ($441 million) in 2011. The city's crab production contributed more than 11 percent of local farmers' per capita income this year, said Han Yinglin, a divisional director for fisheries and seafood at the bureau.

"The industry contributes 1,400 yuan a year to farmers' annual incomes, accounting for 11.5 percent of their per capita income. It's really an industry that is filling our villagers' wallets," he added.

Bai Qingkui, who was a technician at a local official institution, quit his job to cultivate crabs in 1998. The number of his staff increased from one to more than 30 and his cultivation area expanded from just a few acres to 20 hectares. "I used to earn about 10,000 yuan a year but now I earn as much as 2 million yuan a year," the 52-year-old businessman said.

His company covers the entire industry chain, including breeding, cultivation and trading. "Thanks to the crab industry, I changed my bicycle to a car and changed my shabby cottage to a villa," he said.

"Taking Panshan county as an example, 78,000 people benefited from the industry. As the main crab producing area of Panjin, the county's crab output was 2.05 billion yuan in 2011, accounting for 10 percent of the country's total. At least 2,000 yuan of local farmers' annual per capita income come from the crab industry," said Yan Baiwen, head of the county's crab industry association.