Business booming for Taiwan’s crab farmers
Print Edition
The small village house courtyard filled with makeshift tables doesn’t look like a spot for fine dining, but the restaurant in central Taiwan's Miaoli is always fully booked during the few months it is open each year.
Customers come from late autumn to mid-winter for fresh crabs the owner, Chen Yun-yung, raises in the three medium-sized ponds beside the house.
These are not the sea crabs that Taiwan people are familiar with, but freshwater Shanghai hairy crabs found in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
For Chen, a teacher at a local vocational school for more than three decades, running a crab farm was a dramatic change.
“My wife loves Shanghai crabs. We used to go to expensive restaurants for them every season,” said Chen, who inherited some farmland from his father.
“When I retired from the school in 2012, I thought, why not raise crabs?”
His retirement plan coincided with a 2011 cross-Strait agricultural initiative between Shanghai and Miaoli County.
Every January, young crabs are shipped from Shanghai to crab farms in Miaoli.
Under the deal, experts from Shanghai Ocean University visit the crab farms once or twice a year to train locals in raising the crustaceans.
“The professors are very helpful. In the first year, the harvest was not good because I did not carefully follow their instructions. In the following years, I listened and followed their methods, and the harvest was decent,” Chen said.
This year, about 3,500 crabs were harvested from Chen’s ponds, earning him about NT$500,000 (US$15,200).
Miaoli has about 75 crab farms, which produce about 150,000 crabs a year.
“All of them are sold to Taiwan customers and often sell out," said Chen Shu-i, deputy head of the county's agriculture department.
“Some foodies used to fly to Shanghai for crabs, but now they come here.”
After three years of trials, Miaoli farmers started raising high-quality crabs.
This year, they won three awards at a high-profile crab contest in Shanghai and even beat farmers in east China’s Jiangsu Province, where the hairy crabs were first raised, in terms of taste.
The crabs have been bought by high-end restaurants that used to only purchase crabs from the mainland. This autumn, LDC Hotels & Resorts Group, a major hotel chain, started ordering crabs from Miaoli farmers.
“We served the crabs at restaurants at our two hotels. The feedback was favorable and sales were good. We decided to expand to seven hotels next season,” said a statement from LDC.
The crabs have not only drawn diners but also helped other businesses.
“In addition to having a crab feast, visitors will stay overnight, bathe at local hot springs bathhouses and bring home farm produce,” Chen Shu-i said.
Crab farms make NT$45 million a year, but also contribute an additional NT$200 million in other sectors, he said.
Local farmer Chung Fu-kuei built an eco-farm and campsite centered on his crab ponds.
“Crabs are the major attraction, but customers can do much more than dine. They can set up a bonfire and party at the campsite,” he said.
Crab farms also help to fill the gaps when local farmers have to leave paddies fallow for a couple of years, he said.
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