Company to rear mud crabs in Brunei mangrove

Meeting demands: A section of the Aquaculture Innovation Centre’s R&D farm and facility at Neo Tiew Crescent. — Straits Times/ANN

IN A few years, seafood lovers could be digging into chilli crab and fried soft-shell crabs that come from a mangrove in Brunei.

But these mud crabs will be first bred in a lab, to be released to their natural mangrove habitats after they become crablets.

A portion of the repopulated crabs will be caught and fattened up in an indoor farm in Brunei before being harvested for food.

This unique farming concept – which combines food production with restoring depleted mud crabs in the wild – was developed by Aquast, a fledgling Singapore farm, and Temasek Polytechnic’s Aquaculture Innovation Centre (AIC).

Aquast is a subsidiary of 112-year-old seafood importer and wholesaler Lean Hup Fisheries, and is led by its founder Edison Tan, who represents the business’ fourth-generation team.

Tan’s desire to start a home-grown high-tech crab farm stemmed from seeing his mud crab imports’ fluctuations in quality, size and price over the years – key signs of depleting wild stocks.

Much of the mud crab industry worldwide has been reliant on capture-based farming – where mud crabs are taken from the wild and fattened up in farms.

“We wanted to have a controlled source of production for our customers. So that we can guarantee constant prices and quantities for their peace of mind,” said Tan, 49.

He then learnt about AIC, the only centre that regularly does research on mud crabs in Singapore. AIC’s hatchery methods and technology will be licensed to Aquast, which will build a pilot hatchery in Brunei.

Tan decided to set up a farm in Brunei instead of Singapore to take advantage of lower land and operating costs.

About 16ha of land is expected to be set aside for Aquast. — Singapore Straits Times/ANN