Abstract:
Little attention has been paid to develop crab fishery in Sri Lanka though there is a potential for
development of this industry in the coastal belt of the country. The most popular areas for crab fishery
in Sri Lanka are Negombo, Chilaw, Batticaloa, Koggala, Tangall, Dikvalla and Trincomalee. This study
was carried out in Koggala, Gall district to identify the socio-economic situation of crab growers; to
investigate the harvesting, processing and marketing methods; to identify the issues related to livelihood
of crab collectors and to make appropriate suggestions to overcome the recognized issues. Primary and
secondary data were collected for the study.
Almost all the crab collectors who are living around the Koggala lagoon were personally interviewed to
collect primary data. Variables related to socio-economics of the crab collectors were collected to
analyze the situation. The descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation test were employed to analyze
the data. A majority of the crab collectors belonged to middle age category. Their education level was
low and did not completely depend on crab fishery as the income source. They found to engage on
various activities such as crab collecting, sea fishing and fish selling. Average annual income and
income from crab collection were recorded as SLRs 177,960 (US $ 1,618) and SLRs 76,560 (US $ 696),
respectively. However, a majority of crab collectors were in middle level wealth condition. Their
monthly harvest ranged from 0 to 200kg with an average of 35 kg. All the crab collectors sold their
production to regular buyers and to the tourist hotels. Further, crab collectors followed especial postharvest methods and categorize the harvest into three types depending on the size before selling
