50 JUNE 2017 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG in open sea netting with an equipped boat. About 20 percent of harvesters are women. During high tide in the morning, women their husbands and other men go to the nearby mangrove forest by dinghy and usually spend 5-6 hours per day. They harvest crabs holding long hooks with dried eel and also use traps with fresh eel and tilapia as bait. They return during low tide and sell harvested crabs to local depots, earning 250-300 BDT daily. Harvesters noticed that they were able to collect 4-5 kg crabs only five years ago, whereas the amount now is 2-3 kg. Furthermore, the size of crabs has also declined from 250-350 g to 100-150 g and now crab fishers must roam a great distance in dense forest. Repeated harvesting, more harvesters, destruction of habitats, harvesting small and brood crabs, environmental pollution, ecological imbalance and excessive rooted aquatic plants in breeding and nursery grounds have led to a reduction in total biomass harvested and a decline of natural stocks. Crab Marketing and Servicing A large number of people are involved in the crab marketing system. Every evening is the busiest moment for the local crab market. Local buyers start purchasing crab during the afternoon from small- and medium-scale farmers and independent crab collectors and store crabs in baskets until night. Then, crabs are taken to depots in secondary markets with different locally available vehicles. Some well-off farmers come directly to the secondary markets to sell a large amount of product. Depot holders, suppliers, the crab cooperative society, support services, feed sellers, and other input stores are located in this market. From nearby, local buyers go to preferred depots with their daily purchase. In addition, a large number of subservient crab collectors under specific depot/suppliers bring collected crabs from wild sources to this market. Crabs are checked, graded and tied again (if needed) in individual depots by skilled employees. Then crabs are kept in different baskets according to sex and grade (Fig. 6). Finally, at 8-9 pm, all packed crabs are loaded onto trucks for transport to the export market. In general, pricing in the crab marketing system is very enigmatic and furtive. Exporters fix the price based on demand from foreign buyers and then circulate the price by mobile phone to suppliers and depot holders. Later, farmers and collectors are informed through text messages or phone calls to favorable depots. FIGURE 6. Mud crabs graded at a depot in Rampal, Bagerhat, Bangladesh. Photo: Md. Mojibar Rahman. FIGURE 8. Selling snails as crab feed in Rampal, Bagerhat, Bangladesh. Photo: Md. Mojibar Rahman. FIGURE 7. Making enclosures for crab farms in Rampal, Bagerhat, Bangladesh. Photo: Md. Mojibar Rahman. FIGURE 9. Transporting mud crabs from farm to depot in Pikeghaca, Khulna, Bangladesh. Photo: Md. Mojibar Rahman.
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