 "Hairy crab farmer Tie Dandan uses a net to display hairy crabs from a tank at Suzhou Fishery Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. IReuters)")
For more than a decade, Xie Dandan and her family have cultivated one of China’s most valued delicacies — the “hairy crab”, known for its furry claws, sweet flesh and golden roe. But the past three years have been the hardest in their 10-year journey.
“From 2022, it feels like the weather has been getting worse every year,” said Xie, 34, while standing beside tanks of live crabs at Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu province, carefully wrapping them in straw for customers. “We’ve come to mentally prepare for these losses.”
Farmers in the region are facing mounting difficulties as prolonged heat and unusually long summers disrupt the crabs’ breeding cycles. The Chinese mitten crabs, as they are also known, can fetch hundreds of dollars abroad, particularly in Singapore and Japan.
Xie’s community was hit last year by the strongest typhoon to strike China’s east coast since 1949, tearing out nets and disabling oxygenation systems. “Those who work in agriculture are at the mercy of the sky,” she said.
High temperatures threaten growth and survival
According to Kenneth Leung, a marine environment expert at the City University of Hong Kong, elevated temperatures pose a triple threat to the species — slowing their growth, reducing oxygen in the water and encouraging bacterial growth.
Hopes for a strong harvest were crushed this year as temperatures around Suzhou’s Yangcheng Lake stayed above 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) until late October, delaying maturity. The crab cultivation process is labour-intensive: larvae are raised in ponds for a year before being transferred to fenced farms in the lake to molt about five times between March and the late September harvest.
However, intense heat can kill crabs during moulting, and extended summers push back maturity. In 2022, farmers resorted to dropping ice blocks into the water to cool it. Eastern China has experienced some of its hottest and longest summers in the past three years, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) or more on consecutive days.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThis September, officials confirmed the country’s hottest summer since 1961 and its longest northern rains in the same period — conditions scientists have linked to climate change. Leung suggested selective breeding could help, by developing crabs more tolerant of higher temperatures.
Authorities project a harvest of 10,350 metric tons this year, nearly matching previous figures except for last year’s 9,900 tons, when the typhoon struck. Despite efforts to adapt, farmers know they have limited control.
“We can only see whether the hairy crabs will adapt,” Xie said. “If they can’t, maybe this industry will just be eliminated. We can’t do anything about it.”
(With agency inputs)