With China halting crab imports because of the coronavirus (Covid-19), sales of farmed crabs in Khulna's coastal areas have fallen, leaving several thousand crab farmers in the region in difficulty. Dhaka exporters are showing no interest in buying crabs at the moment and are also unwilling to pay the money they owe, so local farmers are being squeezed from both sides.

Farmers said crabs are produced commercially in Koyra, Paikgachha, Dacope and Batiaghata in Khulna. Traders from Dhaka buy them directly from the farmers and export them from Dhaka to China and other neighbouring countries. Export-grade crabs fetch high prices, while the local market pays much less, and if exporters stop buying, local prices will fall further.

The Khulna district fisheries office said large markets for crab have developed over several years in China, Taiwan, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia. Soft-shell crabs go to Australia and ordinary crabs to the other countries. At first, crabs were harvested only from the Sundarbans.

District fisheries officer Md Abu Sayeed said farmers were encouraged to take up commercial crab farming as world demand grew. Crabs are now farmed on 28,546 hectares in Khulna district. In 2018-19 these areas produced 6,989 tonnes of crab, and the target for the current fiscal year is 7,000 tonnes.

Pradip Kumar Gharami, president of the Koyra Upazila Crab Traders' Association, said January and February are the crab season in the area because crab catching in the Sundarbans is closed then, and Dhaka traders buy directly from farms. But Dhaka exporters are not interested in buying now, nor are they willing to pay what they owe.

He said an average of five to six tonnes of crab a week used to be sent from Koyra and nearby areas to wholesale depots in the capital for export to China.

Wholesalers said crab exports to China stopped on 25 January because of the coronavirus, and traders at the depots are sitting idle. Farmers who cannot sell their crabs are worried. If the deadlock continues, some 4,000 large and small farmers in the area will lose several crore taka.

Md Mizanur Rahman, deputy director of the Fish Inspection and Quality Control wing, said: "Crabs and eels from the Khulna region are exported directly from Dhaka. We do not have figures on how much export is currently stopped, but judging by production, a large number of farmers are being hurt by the halt."

Koyra upazila fisheries officer Md Alauddin Hossain said: "Last year crabs were farmed on 310 hectares in this upazila. That land produced 2,190 tonnes, and 1,109 tonnes were collected from the Sundarbans. With more crab farmers this year, the target was doubled. But with exports stopped at the last moment, everyone is disheartened."

Source: Dhaka Tribune. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.