One in eight residents in Xuyi county, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, works in the crayfish industry, and the signs are visible everywhere.
Chinese diners hungry for fresh seafood and eager for an unconventional dining experience are gobbling up crayfish, spurring an economic bonanza for once-impoverished rural counties, where farmers have developed new cultivation techniques to satisfy demand.
Yang Weiwei, general manager of Xuyi Power Faction Ecological Agriculture Development, one of the largest producers and distributors in Xuyi, takes pains to describe why Jiangsu crayfish are superior to those from rival provinces such as Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui.