Shrimp farming in Bac Lieu province – Opportunities and challenges

Area and production

Bac Lieu province boasts the largest aquaculture area in the Me Kong River Delta region of nearly 128,610 ha, bringing aquaculture production of 178,000 tons, including about 20,000 ha of intensive and semi – intenstive shrimp farming.

With an annual output of some 105,000 tonnes, Bac Lieu has become the second largest shrimp producer nationwide with diverse breeding models.

Besides, the province is also one of the largest shrimp fry production centres with an output of 25 billion fries per year, accounting for 50% of the Mekong Delta’s figure and 19.23% of the country’s total figure.

Opportunities

In addition to being stowed with favourable condition for aquaculture development, especially shrimp farming, Bac Lieu province has created a source of shrimp seeds serving for processing and exporting. Shrimp seeds production has been invested and developed for years. As a result, Bac Lieu has changed from a province which has to import mostly shrimp seeds from the Central provinces to become a shrimp seed production hub serving for all MeKong River Delta region with 200 shrimp seed production establishments, providing the markets with 25 billion post larvae annually.

Also, taking fully advantages of natural conditions, Bac Lieu has been developing both intenstive and semi – intensive shrimp farming area in the Northern region of 1A Highway, ecological shrimp farming, shrimp – rice rotate farming, shrimp – crab farming, shrimp farming combined with other fish farming with total area of over 41,250 ha. This unique and diversity of shrimp farming models has created a source of shrimp seeds supplying for processing and exporting

Along with aquaculture, Bac Lieu province is one of provinces having highest number of seafood enterprises, making great contribution to the province’s economic development. Currently, the province has 21 shrimp processing enterprises, many of which are eligible for exporting to strict export markets such as EU, US, Japan, etc with export value reaching US$ 450 million, contributing to creating jobs for the locals.

Challenges

In addition to advantages, shrimp industry in Bac Lieu has been facing challenges such as lacking of planning, the impact of climate change, diseases and the limited quality of seed.

Towards the largest shrimp production “hub”

With the goal of becoming the largest shrimp production “hub” in the country and towards sustainable development, Bac Lieu province has come up with some sollutions.

According to scheme on restructuring Bac Lieu province’s fisheries sector by 2020, orientation 2030 towards improvement of value added and sustainability, Bac Lieu would build a comprehensive infrastructure including electricity, transportation and irrigation for 12,000 ha of intensive and semi – intensive shrimp farming; infrastructure for concentrated shrimp seed production areas to draw the enterprises’ investment.

In addition, Bac Lieu would boost the application of international standards such as VietGAP, GlobalGAP, ASC hoặc Organic in shrimp farming in order to provide processing and exporting enterprises with clean and high quality raw materials. Besides, the province will continue building concentrated farming areas and a number of high-tech shrimp farming models, such as the model of super-intensive shrimp production in greenhouses of the Viet Nam-Australia Group and the model of applying the Biofloc technology to super-intensive shrimp production at the Truc Anh Production and Trading Limited Company. This would contribute to increasing farmers’ income, improving livelihoods of the coastal fishermen communities.

Recently, the Prime Minister has approved a project on opening a high-tech agricultural park for shrimp farming in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu. The park is planned to cover 200 hectares in phase one and become the first of its kind in Vietnam. This is a chance for Bac Lieu province’s shrimp to improve production, quality and expand export markets.

Source: D-Fish