Mud Crab
Production
" Mud crab" production is probably a new term to most people reading this website. In fact, globally intensive crab farming is pretty much at pioneering stages. Its quite simply confining young crabs in an enclosed area and feeding until they have reached a good selling weight of around 1 kilo and then harvesting. After harvest, they can be consumed by the local community and/or sold by the beneficiaries in the many small markets in the local area for small profit gains. Mud crabs also need a specific habitat to grow well. The prime habitat is the salt shore line, and mangrove forests which are under decline both locally and globally. Locally, the decline of the mangrove forests is mainly due to deforestation by communities that use the especially resilient timber for building purposes. Mangrove forests play a vital biological role being the major breeding area for fish and many edible shell fish.
The project was started with this in mind as an example of how a local community could gain profit from the sustainable crab harvest without causing damage to the environment. There have been several small harvests from the project. However, these have been well short of what was expected and we have discovered that cultivating mud crab is not such an easy task.
To improve the potential of the project, we have partnered with the nearby college, Lupon School of Fisheries and they have an active program involving their students in making the project area an experimental out reach for the school.
We are eagerly waiting to make headway with this project and with " expert" advice from the college, we are sure, it will not be long until the project fulfils its objectives.