The hardest year for Bahzera Reshat was 2017. The wife of a Kazak herdsman in Karasu village in Nilka county, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, had to sell all of the family's sheep to save her father in law, who had stomach cancer.

"Even though the sheep were the only income of our family, we had to sell them. After that, we had nothing to herd and didn't know how we would live. My husband had to find a part-time job, but the small salary doesn't cover our daily cost," Bahzera said.

They were frustrated until one of their friends pointed them to a job at a local company that breeds cold-water species of fish.

"It was pretty weird to hear of a company breeding fish around here, because raising horses or sheep are the main traditional business in Nilka. But we had to give it a try, because we desperately needed the money," Bahzera said.

The company is Xinjiang Tianyu Co, which imports fish eggs, mainly rainbow trout, from Alaska and hatches them at a breeding base on the county's Kashi River.