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High technology for fish: an automatic feeding machine at the Hongjiu Aquaculture Base in Chengbei sub-district in Rugao. [Photo/WeChat account: rugaofabu]

These days, the lives of the snakehead fish farmers are getting better and better in Chengbei sub-district in Rugao – a county-level city administered by Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province.

Snakeheads are members of the freshwater perciform fish family Channidae, native to parts of Asia. These elongated fish – distinguished by their long dorsal fins, large mouths and shiny teeth – are delicious to eat.

At Hongjiu Aquaculture Base, the farmers need only to be responsible for feeding the snakehead fish and can earn more than 100,000 yuan ($15,006) annually per fishpond.

Hongjiu is proving popular as a fish farm with the men, after it adopted a clever, high-tech mode of operations – like automatic, mechanized feeding machines.

The company provides the fishponds, the juvenile fish, feed, equipment, technology and support services and the contract farmers feed the fish and harvest them at harvest season, according Fan Cunguo, who owns the farm.

For farmers short of funds, the fish farm has also joined hands with the local banks to provide part of the initial capital, Fan said.

The novel fish farm has attracted more than 30 farmers, and each farmer is contracted to two fishponds on average.

"Fishponds are in short supply now. We will further expand the scale to meet the needs of more farmers," Fan said.