East Timor – Mud Crab and Milkfish Cultivation

Fisheries Create New Opportunities for Villagers

ACDI/VOCA was recently awarded a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to develop a three-year project to cultivate mud crabs and milkfish in the northern coastal villages of Timor-Leste. The project will operate in twenty villages, and will be developed in collaboration with the Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and with the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry.

Mud crabs (Scylla serrata) are a prized delicacy throughout Asia, commanding high prices in upper-end restaurants and hotels in the region. The crabs, which grow wild, are caught along the coasts of Timor-Leste, Australia and Indonesia, and elsewhere in Asia. Mud crabs are also successfully raised in captivity, in cages partially submerged in coastal mangrove forests, where they are sustained by tides and supplemental feeding until they reach a marketable size.

Milkfish (Chanos chanos, also known as bangus) is one of the two most commonly cultivated fish in Asia, going back at least 700 years, and is also caught wild throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Its tolerance to a wide range of water conditions makes it an ideal species for cultivation in Timor-Leste. While milkfish has some export potential, the project will cultivate them for domestic consumption to increase the protein intake in these poor villages, and provide some income from locally marketed surplus.

The Mud Crab and Milkfish Cultivation project will establish fisheries cooperatives in twenty villages along Timor-Leste’s north coast to develop and manage crab and fish nurseries. Families wishing to raise crabs or fish will be selected by the cooperatives. Most of the participants will be women, because crab and fish cultivation activities are not dependent on a fixed schedule and allow for the flexibility women need to accommodate other household responsibilities; and the cages and tanks will be located in the villages, close to homes.

Technical assistance will be provided by the project in forming and managing the cooperatives, and in the technical aspects of crab and fish cultivation. Solar-powered tanks will be installed in each village, and members of the cooperatives will be taught in their maintenance and use. Crab cages and fish pens will be made from local materials, and locally woven baskets will be used to transport the crabs to a central holding tank facility in Dili, the capital. A receipt system will be designed and implemented so that individual producers can be accurately compensated for the crabs sent to market.

The project will enter a close-down phase at the end of the third year. Because of the high demand for crabs, and the consequently high return for them, the project will become a sustainable new industry for Timor-Leste.

For more information contact Elizabeth Weber at eweber@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 10/10

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