Prospects from the stone crab farming model on the outpost island

The stone crab farming model was implemented by Ms. Lam 3 years ago, after a tour and learning experience in Ly Son special economic zone, Quang Ngai province.

Through research, realizing that stone crabs are easy to raise, have few diseases, and do not require much investment or care, the couple decided to start a trial raising.

“We built the cage, tiled it, bought large tree trunks and used stacked sea rocks and corals to make holes for the crabs to hide in, the total cost was about 40 million VND. Next, I imported rock crabs from Ly Son special zone for about 50 million VND. However, due to lack of experience, the crabs fell off more and more, the first crop was considered a failure,” Ms. Lam recalled.

The stone crab model is expected to open up new economic development prospects in the Con Co special economic zone - Photo: TP

Not discouraged, the couple learned more about crab farming techniques from the breeding unit; while farming, they also learned from their own experiences. Thanks to that, over time, their family model became more and more stable and developed.

Ms. Lam said that the conditions for stone crabs to live well are that the land must be moist and have many caves for them to hide. The food of this species is green vegetables, chopped banana trees or grated coconut pulp. Especially during the period when the crabs carry eggs, water must be regularly watered to ensure humidity for the crabs to reproduce effectively and produce high productivity. The water used to bathe the crabs is pure seawater that she brings home and stores in a container. Every day, she, her husband and the staff take turns watering the cage with salt water 3 times to provide the crabs with moisture and salt.

Currently, her family has 3 cages with a total weight of about 200 kg. Instead of raising them all at once, Ms. Lam raises them in a seasonal manner to ensure there is always enough crabs to serve her family's culinary business. Tram Anh Restaurant has been opened by her for many years now, and is a destination that many tourists visit when visiting Con Co. Besides seafood such as oysters, fish, snails, etc., stone crab is a dish that diners often request.

Commercial stone crabs bring high economic efficiency. Depending on the size, finished stone crabs are sold for between 800,000 VND and 1 million VND/kg. From the model of raising stone crabs and running a restaurant, Ms. Lam's family has an average income of 200-250 million VND/year.

Ms. Lam revealed that stone crabs attract tourists not only because of their firm meat, sweet taste, and lack of fishy smell, but also because of their high nutritional content. Just simple processing is enough to create delicious, fatty crab dishes. To create a highlight for Con Co tourism, Ms. Lam is very willing to guide farming techniques for households in need to expand the area of stone crab farming in the area.

“Understanding the habits of stone crabs will make raising this animal easier because stone crabs are strong, easy to raise, have few diseases, and require little care. My plan in the near future is to expand the model, so I really hope the special zone government will pay attention and create conditions to issue red books so that I can confidently develop long-term. At the same time, for households in need, I will carefully guide them on how to care for them so that they can start raising stone crabs more easily,” Ms. Lam confided.

According to Le Nhat Hai, Deputy Head of the Socio-Economic Department of Con Co Special Zone, stone crab is a specialty that is very popular with tourists. However, this species is banned from being caught because the wild population in Con Co is currently not much. Meanwhile, the demand of tourists is increasing. When the natural supply is not enough to meet the demand, Ms. Lam's family boldly brought stone crabs to raise. "Ms. Lam's family is the first household on the island to succeed with this model. Not only does it develop the family's economy, this model also creates jobs for a number of local workers and partly meets the needs of tourists. This stone crab farming model of Ms. Lam's family has opened up a new economic prospect for people in Con Co Special Zone," Mr. Hai said.

Nam Phuong

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/kinh-te/202509/trien-vong-tu-mo-hinh-nuoi-cua-da-o-dao-tien-tieu-d3d0128/