(vasep.com.vn) Between January and August 2012, An Giang, a Mekong Delta province, reached pangasius seed breeding area of 373 hectares, equal to 89 percent of that reported in the same time last year. The seed output reached only 383 million seeds, equal to 87 percent.
Most of An Giang-based pangasius processors have currently run their own fish farming area, but they still got limited output and could not satisfy needs of raw material for processing because the majority of farms were in small scale. Many companies started to develop fish farming areas which have suitable water resources to farm fish; and then invest in new equipments and technologies to stock fish with high density of 350,000 – 450,000 seeds per hectare, boosting fish production to about 50 MT per hectare.
In the province, the link between fish producers and processors stayed weak. Some companies have already signed supply contracts with farmers to buy farmed fish. However, this measure did not show good effect in the case of small farmers, those needed to make deal with pangasius processing and export companies to sell all their fish.
Other concern of fish growers was lack of money to keep business as banks imposed restriction of credits for borrowers from aquaculture sector. Plus, loans were offered at high interest rate, so medium and small farming households have little chance to access bank credit sources.
In this tough situation, farmers became hesitant to stock fish as the result of rising input cost. Feed for fish growing rose by VND500 – 1,000 per kilogram, vet drugs went up by 10 – 15 percent and fuel price kept climbing; so growers could not make profit though they quoted raw fish price at higher levels.
Fish farmed and sold by farmers can not compete with those produced by processing companies in price because farmers were not granted a return of 5 percent of value-added tax on feed and vet drugs...It was very difficult for them to get loans at preferential interest rate because banks considered pangasius aquaculture as a risky sector and intended to limit offering loans or just grant loans at high interest rate.
Raw pangasius price showed downward trend in domestic market, threatening fish farming activities. Both producers and processors needs more finance to save business. Farmers are forced to push down price to sell fish and get money to pay back the bank. However, due to lack of capital, fish processing companies just buy fish with smaller volume or reduce purchasing fish for inventory.
Locality required that Directorate of Fisheries should coordinate with Ministry of Finance to calculate the needed cost for pangasius production each year. The data will be used to set the floor price of raw pangasius in the domestic market.