The crab seed crisis: Why quick fixes won’t save Bangladesh’s blue economy

Bangladesh's coastal waters have gifted us with many treasures, but few are as remarkable as the humble mud crab. What began decades ago as an incidental catch in the estuaries of Khulna and Satkhira has quietly transformed into one of our most promising export industries. 

Today, this sector earns nearly Tk700 crore annually from international markets and provides livelihoods for over 300,000 people across some of the country's most vulnerable coastal communities. 

It is a story of grassroots entrepreneurship at its finest—farmers, collectors, and small traders building a global business from the mangroves outward.

Yet beneath these impressive numbers lies a gathering crisis. The very foundation of this industry—the supply of crab seed, or "crablet"—is being steadily exhausted. 

Almost all of the crablets used for farming are collected directly from the wild, pulled from mangrove creeks and tidal rivers before they can grow or reproduce. This is not sustainable. 

We are effectively consuming our natural capital faster than it can replenish itself, and the warning signs are impossible to ignore. 

Farmers report that wild seeds are becoming harder to find. Collectors travel farther and work harder for smaller catches. And the delicate ecosystems of our coastal belt are paying a heavy price.

The solution, in principle, is straightforward: we must learn to produce crab seed in hatcheries, just as we have done for decades with shrimp. A pattern has emerged in our approach—one that I have closely observed in my work with hatcheries and farmers. 

We tend to seek quick, ready-made solutions. When a technology works in Vietnam or the Philippines, the immediate impulse is to replicate it here, often through short-term, project-based funding. 

This "plug-and-play" expectation overlooks a fundamental truth: biology is not importable. The local species (Scylla olivacea and Scylla serrata), water salinity, seasonal weather patterns, and disease ecology in Bangladesh are unique. 

Past efforts to transplant foreign hatchery designs have often resulted in infrastructure that looks impressive but functions poorly under local conditions. Water treatment systems proved inadequate, and disease outbreaks were treated on guesswork rather than diagnosis.

This pursuit of instant solutions reflects broader impatience. Policymakers, understandably eager for results, often design interventions around one- to three-year project cycles. 

But developing a stable, replicable biological technology—especially for something as delicate as crab larval rearing—does not adhere to fiscal years. 

It requires iterative learning, controlled experimentation, and the patience to fail, analyse, and adapt. We cannot purchase a "crab hatchery in a box"; we must grow one, adapted to our own rivers, our own species, our own geography, and our own climate.

The core of the crisis: Where we stand today

The challenges are now well known but remain unresolved. First is the live feed dilemma. Crab larvae require live food, culminating in expensive imported Artemia. Without developing nutrient-enriched alternatives using local resources, hatcheries will never be cost-effective. 

Second is the larval survival mystery. Mass die-offs at the zoea or megalopa stage collapse production batches. We lack definitive answers—is it pathogens, nutritional gaps, or water quality? Research is sparse and fragmented. 

Third is the broodstock blind spot. We continue to catch wild mother crabs, introducing disease and genetic uncertainty. 

A systematic programme to develop captive-bred, healthy broodstock—particularly of the more fecund Scylla serrata—has not been prioritised. 

Perhaps the most overlooked gap is human capacity. 

We have no dedicated cadre of crab hatchery technicians. The skills for managing crab larvae differ profoundly from those of shrimp, yet training is ad hoc. Where will the next generation of hatchery managers come from?

A path built on patience and partnership

There are, however, signs of a wiser approach. The recent formation of a Technical Committee on crab hatchery development, bringing together the Department of Fisheries Bangladesh (DoF), Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), universities, and hatchery specialists, is a crucial step. 

This committee must be shielded from the pressure of delivering instant miracles; its mandate should be to guide sustained, strategic research over five to ten years, not to chase quick wins.

Importantly, a new and concrete opportunity exists to translate this guidance into action: the Resilient Homestead and Livelihood Support to the Vulnerable Coastal People of Bangladesh (RHL Project), implemented by PKSF. 

With its long-term horizon, integrated approach to coastal resilience, and direct connectivity to thousands of crab farmers and MFIs providing financial and technical assistance, the project provides an ideal operational platform. 

It can move beyond short-term pilots to foster the patient, iterative development cycle that hatchery technology desperately needs. Furthermore, the RHL Project can help design and implement value-chain initiatives to link all stakeholders on a single platform.

Our immediate focus should be on three adaptive pillars:

Build on existing strengths, not only foreign models

Instead of reinventing the wheel, we must adapt our own shrimp hatchery expertise. Bangladeshi shrimp hatcheries have mastered multi-filter, nearly zero-antibiotic, and probiotic-based water management operations. 

This knowledge is a goldmine for crab hatcheries. Let's retrofit and learn from what we already do well, rather than importing incompatible systems. We can facilitate this knowledge exchange by creating partnerships between progressive shrimp hatchery owners and new crab hatchery entrepreneurs.

Create 'living laboratories,' not just pilot hatcheries

We need hatchery units that serve dual purposes: as commercial ventures and as research sites. These should be equipped to systematically trial different feed regimes, water treatments, and broodstock sources. 

Every batch, successful or failed, must generate data. Initiatives should establish such integrated models, providing long-term operational support for research-integrated production and moving beyond the short-term construction grants that have limited past success.

Mandate the market shift where it matters most

The soft-shell crab processors, who use even tiny 50-gram crabs, are the biggest drivers of wild seed collection. A progressive policy must mandate that processors source a growing percentage of their crabs from hatcheries. 

This would create instant, powerful demand to pull the hatchery sector into viability—a direct lever we have not yet pulled. 

In this context, while Japan Fast Trade Ltd.'s crab hatchery success may not be widely documented, the company's initiative to address this gap in soft-shell processing and exporting is certainly commendable.

A call for policy patience

To our policymakers and development leaders, I offer this respectful submission: the crab hatchery challenge is a marathon, not a sprint. Funding must shift from isolated, short-term projects to a decade-long national programme embedded within institutions like BFRI and the DoF. 

It must fund postgraduate researchers to spend years studying zoea (early larval stage of crabs) nutrition, support private entrepreneurs through the risky early commercial phases, and transform the Cox's Bazar government hatchery into a permanent national centre of excellence and training.

The work of organisations such as the DoF, BFRI, PKSF, NGF, COAST Foundation, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), WorldFish, and GIZ has laid a foundation of invaluable experience. We must now build upon it with strategic patience. 

The RHL Project of PKSF represents a timely opportunity to take coordinated initiatives from now on, applying long-term thinking to a problem that has suffered from short-termism. The goal is not merely to produce a crablet, but to cultivate an entire ecosystem of knowledge, skill, and sustainable practice.

Bangladesh's blue economy ambitions are bold and justified. However, a truly sustainable blue economy cannot be built on borrowed technology and plundered natural resources. 

It must be rooted in our own scientific perseverance. Let us grant our scientists, entrepreneurs, and farmers the most crucial resource of all: time. The crab sector—and the hundreds of thousands who depend on it—deserve nothing less.

Sketch: TBS

Al-Imran is Assistant Project Coordinator (Value Chain Specialist) for the Resilient Homestead and Livelihood Support to the Vulnerable Coastal People of Bangladesh (RHL Project) at Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF). 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.