Captive breeding key to mudcrab crop

VENTURE: Mud crab farm owner Seow Hung Yong with part of the first commercial harvest of NT aquaculture mud crabs. Picture: BRAD FLEET

The first 3 tonne batch of crabs are ready to sell, but farm owner Seow Hung Yong is waiting a few weeks to get the best price.

Mr Yong and his family have invested more than $1 million in the Australia Aquaculture Farming NT venture, renovating a former prawn farm site near Channel Island, south of Darwin.

Mr Yong came to the NT from Singapore three years ago and studied aquaculture at Charles Darwin University before starting the 10-pond farm last December.

The businessman said he could not have succeeded without the help of the Darwin Aquaculture Centre (DAC).

The DAC - a research arm of the Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries and Mines - pioneered a captive breeding program for baby mud crabs.

The DAC supplies baby crabs to the farm, providing 70,000 in the last six months.

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