“Greening” is a very popular phrase nowadays. Because the world trend cannot be changed; protecting the environment, sustainable development is the only way for the earth to survive long term. “Greening” is probably a beautiful word to refer to the above content.

Most recently, green industrial zones, green credit... extending the previous "green" things such as green cities, green enterprises, green products, even green waste... Our government has committed to a carbon neutral roadmap, a criterion that covers the "greening" process in our country. The seafood industry in general, and the shrimp industry in particular, are not standing aside to visit and learn from experience... but must join hands to catch up right now.

This has been directed by industry leaders early and decisively. VASEP's Vietfish 2024 has a discussion topic on "Greening farming areas"; the Fisheries Association's Vietshrimp 2025 has the same topic. This is proof of the rapid movement of the seafood industry. The SG Economic Times and SGGP newspapers also have many seminars revolving around the story of "Greening". Perhaps all economic sectors are urging the implementation of this extremely urgent and necessary content.

Back to the shrimp industry. This industry chain is formed from many links. Greening the industry, first of all, means greening each link. Among those links, the farming part is the most important, because this link creates a large amount of waste (emissions and waste), although not as high as animals raised on land such as cows, chickens, etc. With such importance, the above industry conference revolving around this topic is extremely reasonable.

Sao Ta is a seafood enterprise with a large farming area and the highest shrimp output compared to other farms in the industry. Therefore, in theory, emissions are also among the highest. Sao Ta is also the only enterprise in the industry that has had the longest participation process in implementing the set of sustainable development criteria (CSI) launched by VCCI. Evidence is that in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, Sao Ta was in the top 100 sustainable Vietnamese enterprises selected by VCCI and related ministries. That also proves that Sao Ta has awareness and especially has an action plan to closely follow the Government's carbon neutral roadmap, and in fact has had some quite good results. Specifically, Sao Ta's farming area has paid attention to and implemented a number of solutions:

+ Farming ponds have been researched and constructed in a mass and methodical manner. The pond area should be moderate (2000-3000m2/pond) to facilitate pond bottom control and the slope to the middle of the pond should be good so that the pond bottom does not retain waste after siphoning, reducing the generation of gas emissions from the pond bottom. The meaning is to create a cleaner environment for shrimp and reduce emissions.

+ Research for many years (2015-2018) on multiplying the biomass of beneficial bacteria in the farming area to serve farming. Probiotics with large densities will occupy the area, especially the bottom of the pond, competing for food and living environment with other bacteria strains from outside. The food of beneficial bacteria is excess shrimp food, and shrimp excrement. To balance the index in the food (C and N), the farm will supplement the pond with molasses or starch products. Sao Ta farm has been successful in multiplying the biomass (mainly Bacilus strain) to ensure the density of billions of microorganisms per gram of sample and especially the pure rate (no impurities) is absolute. From the first 2000 liter tank, it has now developed to 8 similar tanks and supplies a batch every 2 days, serving over 600 ponds of the farms and as a result, early mortality disease of shrimp is no longer present at Sao Ta farm. The economic and GREEN significance of this is (1) Using beneficial microorganisms to overwhelm harmful microorganisms, minimizing the use of chemicals harmful to the general environment and especially reducing costs, reducing the price of farmed shrimp products, increasing the competitiveness of our shrimp industry (2) Not creating waste, reducing emissions because the source of emissions (leftover food, shrimp manure, etc.) has been used by beneficial microorganisms.

+ After the above success, Sao Ta Farm continues to research on microbial biomass that stimulates digestion and continues to be a microbial biomass that can absorb emissions in wastewater such as NO2, NO3, NH3, NH4, etc. The significance of this solution is both limiting environmental pollution and reducing emissions, contributing to faster carbon neutralization. Although this achievement has not been quantified, it has been qualitatively confirmed in both research and practice.

+ Regularly research how to calculate the amount of feed for shrimp based on the calculation of positive (weather, good breed) and negative (unusual weather, disease) factors and each type of feed to reduce feed while shrimp still grow as desired. This not only brings economic benefits, FCR reduction reduces costs, increases competitiveness but also means reducing emissions from excess feed if fed inappropriately. The solution of using microorganisms and adequate feed will contribute the most to the action of greening the farming area.

+ Peeled shrimp shells and dead shrimp are collected from shrimp pond siphon points, previously had to be buried. Now, with the success in applying "shrimp farming combined with microbiological farming", this waste has been significantly reduced. Peeled shrimp shells are considered by shrimp as a source of food rich in minerals, while dead shrimp are sold by farms as input materials for processing facilities, considered as a "circular economy". This is both economically significant and emission-reducing.

+ Farms always attach importance to general cleaning and tidying up. This also facilitates control and prevention of animal intrusion. This is meaningful in increasing biosecurity for the farm, reducing waste from composting, creating emissions and causing the risk of spreading to the ponds because the farming area near the sea has frequent strong winds.

+ Waste sludge is absolutely not released into the general environment but is collected entirely in a pre-prepared area. After this sludge dries, it will be used to raise the bottom of the pond, increasing the safety level of the pond. This means that it does not affect the general environment and increases the benefits for the shrimp farm.

+ Actively participate in the coastal protection forest planting program around the farming area. This is meaningful in demonstrating awareness of social responsibility as well as long-term carbon balance responsibility.

+ Farms also focus on not creating difficult-to-treat waste, such as building a drinking water filtration system to supply each farm, not having to buy bottled water from outside. This is both economical and reduces waste.

+ Regarding long-term strategies, farms have discussed with feed suppliers, researched ingredients and raw materials so that the feed is both well-digested, reasonably priced, but most importantly, reduces emissions as much as possible. Airplanes already have a fuel source that reduces emissions, so this small story is not difficult for the industry. The possibility of success will not be far away.

In short, due to the lack of information from shrimp farms everywhere, I would like to take the image of Sao Ta shrimp farm to present the contents that can be done from now, contributing to greening the shrimp farming area in particular, and the aquaculture industry in general. The next story will be greening seafood processing facilities and possibly greening each other link. But it requires the cooperation of many parties.

Source: VASEP