"Rice district" in Nghe An supplies 900 tons of commercial eel each year

In Bac Son parish, Long Thanh commune, everyone knows about the spacious house worth nearly 1 billion VND that Ms. Pham Thi Hoi's family has just built. Over the past 10 years, in addition to farming 6 sao of rice fields, Ms. Hoi has taken advantage of her free time to open a facility to process wild eels.

The facility's pre-processed eel products have been consumed in many provinces and cities in the country, providing a stable source of income.

Eels are stripped of bones and organs. Photo: Quynh Trang

Currently, many parishioners of the three parish hamlets of Dong Son, Bac Son and Nam Son, Long Thanh commune participate in the business of purchasing and processing eels for a stable income. The processed eel products purchased here are live eels, caught in the fields.

It is known that rice field eels are fattest in February and March, when the rice plants are in bloom; in autumn from August to September, the older the eel, the fatter it is...

After cleaning the eel, put it in a pot of boiling water. Add a little salt and turmeric to the boiling water to make the eel meat firm and have an attractive yellow color, rich and delicious; boil for only 5-10 minutes until the eel is just cooked. Then pour the eel out and continue to wash it with cooled boiled water and proceed with the preliminary processing.

Before being processed, eels must be alive and only those that meet the standards must be selected. Photo: Thai Duong

Every 1 kg of live eel produces 0.7 kg of processed eel. On average, a facility can process 200 - 400 kg of eel per day...

A skilled person can make 8-10kg of finished eel a day, and is paid 200,000 VND by the owner of the facility. Initially, there were only a few families doing the job, but now, the religious area of ​​Long Thanh commune has 30 households following the profession, creating jobs for 300 local workers with a stable income of 3-5 million VND/person/month.

After being cleaned, the eel is boiled for 5-10 minutes. Photo: Quynh Trang

Mr. Nguyen Van De - Vice Chairman of Long Thanh Commune People's Committee said: Currently, the locality has many support mechanisms to help households feel secure in developing their profession; the commune coordinates with related sectors to open many training sessions for people on food safety and environmental hygiene; at the same time, contact stores in big cities to purchase products for people. The commune plans to establish a craft village for processing wild eels, in line with the economic restructuring of the locality.

Yen Thanh is a key agricultural area, it is both the rice granary and eel granary of the province; on average each year this locality supplies the market with about 900 tons of commercial eel.