(seafood.vasep.com.vn) The Ca Mau Department of Agriculture and Environment has recently issued a plan to develop specialized crab raw material zones serving official export channels, covering a scale of around 50,000 hectares. This marks a significant shift in the sea crab industry towards professional production aligned with market requirements.
Currently, Ca Mau boasts over 365,000 hectares of sea crab farming with annual output exceeding 36,000 tonnes, providing livelihoods for over 45,000 households. Sea crab is one of the province’s key seafood products with strong domestic consumption and exports to multiple markets, among which China accounts for more than 70% of total export volume.
Ca Mau crab is renowned for its firm, sweet meat, rich flavor and high nutritional value, particularly crab farmed in mangrove ecosystems. These advantages stem from favorable natural conditions; stable, nutrient-rich water sources and farming methods that rely primarily on natural food sources.
Ca Mau’s commercial crab farming areas are already protected under intellectual property rights through the “Nam Can Crab – Ca Mau” and the “Ca Mau Crab”, providing an essential legal foundation for quality management, anti-counterfeiting and brand value enhancement.
However, the sea crab value chain remains fragmented and insufficiently standardized, falling to fully meet the traceability and quality certification requirements of major importing markets.
To move toward modern production and marketing, Ca Mau aims to establish key crab farming zones of approximately 50,000-hectare for official exports, focusing on advantaged localities such as Nam Can, Phan Ngoc Hien, Dam Doi, Phu Tan and other mangrove-adjacent areas.
Under the plan, the province will expand high-value farming models, including soft-shell crab, roe crab and recirculating crab culture systems; while strengthening seed quality control, environmental monitoring and disease risk mitigation. By 2030, around 5,000 recirculating crab farming units are expected to be put into operation.
Notably, Ca Mau will cooperate with CCIC Certification and Inspection Co., Ltd. (China) to establish a local certification center to shorten processing time and reduce costs for official exports. Simultaneously, QR-code-based traceability systems and digital farming logs will be implemented across the entire material zone.
Alongside farming area development, the province is prioritizing on consolidation and establishing crab farming cooperatives; developing model off-take agreements and encouraging enterprises to invest in deep processing - such as shelled crab meat, frozen crab and soft-shell crab products - to enhance value addition and strengthen the export competitiveness of Ca Mau crab in the global market.