While searching for crayfish news (as you do), I stumbled across this description of the value of crayfish.
- Crayfish are the most popular dish in China.
- Crayfish support five million jobs in China.
- Crayfish are a US$22 billion market in China.
Besides the size of the market, I am surprised because I am willing to bet that it is all invasive species, Louisiana red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii. That’s what the pictures look like, anyway.
This shouldn’t surprise me, considering I remembered this from an article about crayfish in CHina from years ago.
This novel perspective on invasive species was perhaps most elegantly stated as we made small talk with a taxi driver in Wuhan. As we explained our research through an interpreter, the taxi driver smiled and asked, “Can they really be considered a problem if people eat them?"
Yet somehow, I doubt most people would be able to guess just how much money there is in crayfish in this one country. This page (dated 2012) estimates that in Louisiana, one of the biggest American producers of crayfish (hey, it is the Louisiana red swamp crayfish) :
The total economic impact on the Louisiana economy exceeds $300 million annually, and more than 7,000 people depend directly or indirectly on the crawfish industry.
External links
Crayfish was China's most popular dish in 2017
China's crazy love for crayfish created jobs for 5m in 2016
Louisiana Crayfish: Good, Bad and Delicious
Picture from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment