|
Vietnam diversifies its breeds of shrimps for export
Many places in Vietnam are raising white-legged shrimps in an effort to diversify their products and increase their output.
The total area these shrimps are bred on is 12,411 ha out of a total 369,094 ha for all kinds of brackish shrimps, according to the Aquaculture Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Most of the area for cultivating white leg shrimps was previously used for raising sugpo prawns.
“The aim of this conversion is to diversify our exports,” said Nguyen Viet Thang, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Guidance should be provided for farmers to choose between white-legged shrimps and sugpo prawns depending on their own conditions.
24 provinces have produced 12,300 tonnes of white-legged shrimps and 78,300 tonnes of prawns so far this year.
Breeding white-legged shrimps have many advantages such as high productivity and are quick to grow, consuming little food and are more immune to diseases.
Minister Phat said that globally, white-legged shrimps have many positive changes and Vietnam should make use of this advantage to generate jobs and raise farmers’ incomes.
Strict management on shrimp breeders
By June 2008, the country had 2,488 shrimp breed production farms, including 2,437 prawn farms and 51 white leg shrimp farms.
According to the provincial Departments for Agricultural and Rural Development, in the first months of this year, a large number of prawns and white-legged shrimps were infected with diseases. In particular, as much as 43 percent of the white-legged shrimps in breeding farms in the Go Cong Dong district of southern Tien Giang province died of diseases.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Viet Thang, affirmed that it is essential to strictly manage the quality of these two kinds of shrimp and to prevent breeding them outside the designated areas. He also attributed the dead shrimps in Tien Giang to poor breeding.
Mr Thang also questioned the transporting of low-quality shrimps from the central region to the southern region. Good quality shrimps were selected for local farms, while low-quality breeds were sold in other areas. This situation is happening all over Vietnam.
Minister Phat pledged that his ministry will create the best conditions for shrimp importers. The ministry will also ask the Aquaculture Breeding Department to simplify its administrative procedures and complete them within seven days. The Veterinary Department will also intensify its management of the border areas to ensure the quality of imported shrimps to the Vietnamese market, he added.
Pham Van Duc, director of the Ca Mau provincial Aquaculture Department, said that the number of dead shrimps in the province has reduced by nearly 12 percent. At present, Ca Mau used 117,000ha to breed shrimps and other types of animals due to complicated weather changes, the water and poor irrigation network. In addition, most local farmers are small-scale breeders with out-of-date technologies.
To deal with environmental pollution issues, many localities require an environment monitoring centre. Deputy Minister Thang said that Vietnam now has three national environment and aquaculture monitoring centres located in northern Bac Ninh province, central Khanh Hoa province and Ho Chi Minh City. Aquaculture breeders also need to cooperate with these centres to deal with problems relating to the environment and aquatic diseases in time.
VOV
|
