Ca Mau to organize first-time 'Crab Festival'

Ca Mau province will organize the first "Ca Mau Crab Festival" from December 23-31, themed "Ca Mau Crab - A cultural and culinary rendezvous".

Leaders of the Ca Mau People's Committee expect that through this event, the local image and distinctive products will be promoted to a large number of domestic and foreign tourists, create favorable conditions for tourism services, and attract investment in farming and processing products with local strengths.

The opening program will take place at 7 p.m. on December 23 with many special cultural performances to introduce the land, people and specialties of Ca Mau.

Additional activities during the week are: a trade fair to promote Vietnam and Thailand products and the One Commune One Product (OCOP) initiative; tourism activities like experiencing new tourism products like catching crabs and cooking dishes from crabs; a seminar to discuss solutions for sustainable development of crab farming; a seminar themed "Solutions to prolong the stay of tourists when coming to Ca Mau"; and a workshop named "Innovation and development of local intellectual property".

In parallel, there are sports activities, folk games, and street festivals including a Don ca tai tu festival. Recognized as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2013, Don ca tai tu music and songs evoke the people’s life and work on the land and rivers of the Mekong Delta region.

The organizing board will also hold a culinary competition to set records for dishes made from crabs and receive the Asian specialties record for U Minh fish sauce hot pot.

Ca Mau has a coastline of 254 kilometers, nearly 70,000 hectares of mangrove forest, and over 250,000 hectares for farming shrimp and other aquatic species including crabs.

The country's southernmost province not only has a large shrimp production base, but also sea crabs that lead the country in terms of output. Sea crabs are one of the commodities with high economic values and are favored by a large number of consumers.

Currently, sea crabs in the wild in Ca Mau have decreased a lot. To meet market requirements, people in the coastal area of Ca Mau have strongly developed sea crab farming.

In order to honor local culinary specialties, at the end of 2019, Ca Mau province's tourism sector built a model of Ca Mau crabs with composite material at the size of 5 meters x 2.8 m x 1.72 m in the Ca Mau Cape tourist area.