Value Chain Analysis of Mud Crab in the South-West Coastal Region of Bangladesh

Abstract

Mud crab centric livelihood is one of the major provisionary services for mangrove adjacent poor community in the south-west coastal  region of Bangladesh. The core objective of this research is to portray how the value adding activities are performed by multitudinous mud crab centric actors. In this regard the authors purposively choose total 93 actors related with mud crab centric activities and  grouped them into seven main channels based on the information retrieved from field visit, KII and FGD. Analytical operations like  percentile distribution and average calculation are executed in addition to generating flow-chart and tabular exhibitions for  representing material flow, input and support service flow, money flow, involved stakeholders and stages, value adding activities and  value addition. This study finds that in each of the main channels, crab catcher and depot are common. However, the fattener plays a  dominant role for value addition of mud crab by nurturing and fattening them. Therefore, the paper recommends developing and  expanding fattener-oriented chain so that the mud crab centric economic activities become more value additive. Two major actors,  crab catcher and fattener are not getting proper price. They are trapped in the vicious circle of credit burden and supposed to sell crab  at lower price to the middleman or depot owner. Therefore, alternative credit management is inevitable for the crab catchers at  favorable terms and conditions.