On the morning of September 16th, Liu Zexuan, an eel farmer at the ecological aquaculture demonstration base in Zhanggou Town, Xiantao City, rowed his boat to the center of the pond and hauled up a cage of eels. The cage yielded 87 jin of eels, priced at around 32 yuan per jin from local buyers, netting him approximately 700 yuan in profit after costs. "At peak times, a single cage can bring in nearly 100 jin of eels," Liu said. With over two decades of eel farming experience, he and his family earn about 200,000 yuan annually, and this income has even funded his child's overseas education.

Farmers like Liu Zexuan are common throughout Xiantao. As the region with the largest eel farming scale and the most complete industrial chain in China, Xiantao is home to 5,635 eel farming operations and 10,180 farming ponds. Its pond cage and "rice-shrimp-eel" farming areas cover 300,000 mu, yielding 118,000 tons of eels, accounting for 32.84% of the national total and 54.70% of the provincial total. Xianfeng Village in Xiantao is hailed as "China's No. 1 Eel Farming Village," where eels serve as the backbone of local prosperity, with villagers' per capita net income exceeding 60,000 yuan. The eel industry not only underpins Xianfeng Village's collective economy but also attracts returning villagers to start businesses, giving rise to a new generation of eel farmers.

To ensure local eels circulate effectively in the national market and genuinely boost villagers' incomes, Xianfeng Village established a dedicated eel trading market. Here, eels from farmers undergo screening, sorting, and weighing before being shipped to buyers nationwide. Today, this is China's largest eel trading hub, with daily transaction prices published on the "Zhongjia" platform, serving as the national benchmark for eel price trends. The market's annual trading volume reaches 650 million yuan.

Zhu Chuanbao, Party Secretary of Xianfeng Village in Zhanggou Town, Xiantao City, explained that farmers negotiate prices with buyers and then hand over their eels to the market, where staff handle weighing and settlement. The market charges a service fee of 4‰ of the transaction value to both buyers and sellers. Crucially, the market offers more than just intermediary services. Zhu noted that Xianfeng Village has built a big data platform to systematically collect and integrate eel trading data, partnering with banks to launch credit products tailored to eel transactions. "Farmers don't need collateral or guarantees; they obtain credit based on their trading records. Last year, we extended nearly 1 billion yuan in credit to farmers. Meanwhile, buyers often face capital shortfalls when purchasing eels, so we provide them with credit based on their purchasing history and qualifications. This credit is designated solely for eel purchases, creating a closed loop that resolves funding challenges for the village collective, buyers, and farmers alike," Zhu said.

Traditional agriculture is often asset-light, lacking the collateral banks typically require, making agricultural financing persistently difficult. In 2023, Hubei Province introduced the "Eel Seven Measures" policy to advance the construction of an eel industry big data platform, proposing innovative eel-specific financial products with priority and preferential credit support. "This is a successful case of agricultural data assetization," said Ma Jiliang, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He pointed out that difficulties in agricultural lending and cash flow shortages are the biggest hurdles in agricultural product circulation and trade. By transforming transaction data into credit assets for credit assessments of buyers and farmers, Xianfeng Village enables more cash-strapped residents to participate in eel farming, achieving shared prosperity.

Building on its eel industry, Xianfeng Village has carved out a path to "shared industrial prosperity." In 2025, the village's collective economy income reached 5.267 million yuan, with the eel trading market contributing nearly 3.2 million yuan of that total. As the industrial chain continues to expand, Xiantao's reputation as "China's Eel Capital" grows stronger, with the "Xiantao Eel" brand value now reaching 30.651 billion yuan.