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Two-day workshop for Pak Phaya Cooperative Settlement members is part of the university's Smart Agriculture Skills Development Project, supported by Thailand's Agricultural Research Development Agency (ARDA)

Walailak University concluded a two-day training workshop, "Mud Crab Smart Farming: Optimizing Yield and Quality with Sensor and IoT," for 22 farmers of the Pak Phaya Cooperative Settlement, members of the Nakhon Si Thammarat Provincial Cooperative Office. Held August 4–5 at the cooperative's learning center in Pak Nakhon Subdistrict, Mueang District, the workshop combined classroom instruction with hands-on sensor and "crab condo" setup sessions, concluding with a certificate of completion presented to every participant.

The training is part of the university's Smart Agriculture Skills Development Project, a collaboration with the Agricultural Research Development Agency (Public Organization), or ARDA, that aims to help Thai farmers adopt modern technology to raise the value and standard of their production. The mud crab initiative is one of six activities under the wider project, which also covers low-cost marine tilapia farming, dairy feed management, goat meat product development, and export-quality mangosteen production.

The initiative is led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee, Director of Walailak University's Center of Excellence for Ecoinformatics, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mullica Jaroensutasinee, Vice President for Academic Affairs in Science and Technology and Acting Dean of the School of Science.

"Dr. Krisanadej and I developed this initiative as part of Walailak University's community-engagement and academic service mission, to translate our research in smart aquaculture, the Internet of Things, and coastal resource management into practical solutions that local farmers can actually use," said Dr. Mullica. 

"Coastal communities here face overfishing and volatile market prices, and they need technology that helps them build resilience. By sharing knowledge and best practices among the crab farmers here in the Pak Phaya cooperative, we're helping turn crab farming from a day-to-day survival activity into a sustainable, technology-driven business. When farmers can store undersized crabs in individual crab condos and fatten them to meet market demand, they're able to hold their stock instead of selling in a panic when prices drop, and sell when demand — and their profit margins — are at their peak."

Mud crab is one of Thailand's most economically valuable coastal species. Yet wild-caught volumes have been declining even as prices rise: Department of Fisheries data show catches falling from 36,100 tons in 2016 to 32,700 tons in 2018, while their value climbed from roughly 5.9 billion baht to 6.3 billion baht over the same period. Nakhon Si Thammarat is already Thailand's leading mud crab-producing province, accounting for roughly 333 million baht — about 38 percent — of the country's total mud crab production value in 2020.



At the center of the training is the Crab Fattening Condominium, a system of vertically stacked individual units that houses each crab separately to prevent cannibalism and fighting.

"The crab fattening condominium works like vertically stacked apartments, with each crab housed in its own unit," Dr. Mullica explained. "Sensors in the water circulating through the system continuously track salinity, pH, and temperature. That data are sent through IoT modules — we use NB-IoT — up to a cloud server, so farmers can monitor water quality in real time from a smartphone dashboard and get an automatic alert if conditions drift outside a safe range. It's a completely different experience from open-pond farming, where checks are manual and periodic, and problems often aren't caught until they've already hurt the crabs."

According to the project's research findings, farmers who currently sell substandard, undersized, low-meat crabs to middlemen for around 160 baht per kilogram could instead sell crabs at 750–850 baht per kilogram once fattened in the condo system — a potential profit margin of 600–700 baht per kilogram. The system also minimizes feed waste: crabs are fed a precise ration of 10 percent of their body weight, leaving no excess food behind, and the water is continuously recirculated to stay clean.

Dr. Mullica said the university's goal extends well beyond the two-day session. "Our hope is that farmers treat the smart crab condo as part of their daily routine, not just something from a workshop," she said. "We want them to keep documenting and refining local best practices — things like feeding cycles and water treatment — and share that knowledge within the Pak Phaya cooperative, so it stays sustainable long after the training ends. Longer term, Dr. Krisanadej and I want to develop "champion farmers" from this group who can train neighboring crab farming communities across Nakhon Si Thammarat, and we're also working with local municipalities, the provincial fisheries office, and coastal resource management agencies to bring this IoT crab condo model to other coastal districts around the Gulf of Thailand."

Dr. Mullica extended her thanks to Asst. Prof. Dr. Amonsak Sawasdee, Director of Walailak University's Center for Academic Services and head of the overall Smart Agriculture Skills Development Project, and to the Agricultural Research Development Agency (Public Organization), or ARDA, for their support in making the training possible.









Photo courtesy of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mullica Jaroensutasinee
Written by Settaboot Onphakdee, Division of Corporate Communications