ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go of­fi­cial­ly launched its first crab farm on Fri­day, with hopes to sus­tain the qual­i­ty of crabs sold on the mar­ket.

Fund­ed as a sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tive by Dig­i­cel and Shell TT, the pro­pos­al by the Canaan Bon Ac­cord com­mu­ni­ty was se­lect­ed as a pi­lot project.

Over the years, the Canaan/Bon Ac­cord com­mu­ni­ty has held a rep­u­ta­tion for its de­lec­table crab and dumplings dish.

How­ev­er, in re­cent years, the crabs avail­able in the mar­ket have sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­creased in size as ven­dors sell younger crabs to meet ris­ing de­mands.

Speak­ing at the launch at the Buc­coo His­tor­i­cal Park and Na­ture Cen­tre, To­ba­go West MP and Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis praised the Canaan/Bon Ac­cord com­mu­ni­ty for this ini­tia­tive.

“If you teach peo­ple how to tap in­to what they re­al­ly are, what they want, and give them the nec­es­sary re­sources to move, you’re go­ing to see mag­ic,” said Min­is­ter Cud­joe-Lewis. “You don’t have to spend too much on in­fra­struc­ture. If you give peo­ple the re­sources, they are go­ing to cre­ate the com­mu­ni­ty they want.”

She said this project will em­pow­er the com­mu­ni­ty to do more de­vel­op­men­tal projects.

“This is one way in which we could en­sure that we pro­tect and pre­serve our crabs for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to en­joy the del­i­ca­cy of crab and dumplings. I want to spec­i­fy—To­ba­go crab and dumplings.”

The farm is ex­pect­ed to rear over 2,000 crabs over the next sev­en months be­fore they are dis­trib­uted to restau­rants, su­per­mar­kets, and ven­dors.