Viet-Uc Seafood Corporation – Vietnam’s largest shrimp postlarvae producer with a capacity of over 50 billion, and nine production sites – is well on its way in its rapid expansion into high-tech, sustainable greenhouse farming, business controlling director Vu Duc Tri told Undercurrent News at the country's annual Vietfish trade show.
In April, Undercurrent reported the Ho Chi Minh City-based company had started development of four indoor farms, totaling over 1,100 hectares of land, in the Mekong Delta.
The group has now advanced its production protocols to allow, in its first phase, 10,000 metric tons of “fully traceable shrimp” under an antibiotic-free process, he said.
There was a lot of ongoing construction both for indoor and outdoor shrimp farms, Vu said. “We are rolling out massive investments this year in infrastructure and in developing our biofloc and water-exchange farms. We should harvest our first 10,000t of shrimp next year.”
In the company's vannamei selective breeding program Viet-Uc is now up to the 10th generation, hitting 60% greater growth than at G0, he said. The vast majority of what the company farms is vannamei, but it's also doing some black tiger.
As a massive producer of shrimp postlarvae, the firm will, of course, be self-supplied on this front. The group’s selective breeding programs contribute directly to enhancing postlarvae quality from each generation, providing improved stock with better growth, survival, and resilience to the market, Vu claimed.
They also help to lower the group’s grow-out production cost significantly, he added.
The group also operates a 50,000t feed mill in the Mekong Delta, which will supply at least 50% of the feed demand for its grow-out farms.
Meanwhile, its monodon (or black tiger shrimp) selective breeding program has been going on for more than three years, and is now at generation three with all cohorts now specific pathogen-free (SPF) — “compared to 97% infected in the wild”, said Vu.
“The high-quality SPF post larvae from this program will allow the improvement of the over 600,000ha of monodon extensive grow out in the Mekong Delta.”
(undercurrentnews)