In the 3 quarters of 2024, brackish water shrimp output is more than 1.1 million tons, export turnover reaches 2.8 billion USD. While the target set by the seafood industry for shrimp export for the whole year is 4 billion USD.

Producers face difficulties and challenges

According to the report of the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) at the Workshop "Consulting on effective shrimp farming solutions" (October 31): This year, domestic shrimp production has to face heat in the Central region, drought in the Central Highlands, saline intrusion in the South, storms and floods in the Northern provinces causing damage and great impact on aquaculture. Shrimp exports face many disadvantages due to the global economic crisis, high inflation in major import markets, complicated shrimp diseases, high production costs. Besides, there are difficulties due to competitive pressure with markets such as Ecuador, India...

Workshop "Consulting on effective shrimp farming solutions"

According to Mr. Chau Cong Bang, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ca Mau province: In the first 10 months of this year, the output of farmed shrimp in the province was 200 thousand tons, reaching 82.30% of the plan, up about 2% over the same period, the export turnover of aquatic products reached 968 million USD, equal to 87% of the plan, up over 12% over the same period. The results are relatively positive. However, the low price of shrimp leads to very low profits for businesses and shrimp farmers, which is a big challenge for the shrimp farming industry. This poses the problem of saving production costs to create high competitiveness for products when sold to the global market.

In Bac Lieu province, the development of super-intensive shrimp farming has been quite rapid in recent times, while the application and implementation of solutions for wastewater and waste treatment in aquaculture is still limited. The processes and technologies for wastewater treatment are not yet complete and thoroughly treated to protect the environment and develop sustainable shrimp farming in the province. People lack capital for production, so investment and application of modern processes and technologies in wastewater treatment and waste in aquaculture are still very limited.

Expecting a breakthrough in the last months of the year

According to forecasts, global shrimp production will increase again by the end of 2024, and remain stable in 2025. Vietnamese shrimp may also benefit if the US imposes higher anti-dumping and subsidy taxes on Ecuador, India and Indonesia by the end of December 2024. This is an opportunity for the shrimp industry to make a breakthrough in the last months of the year to reach the target of export turnover of 4 billion USD.

Striving to achieve the set targets, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Kien Giang said: The Department continues to coordinate with localities to build a model of community management of concentrated farming areas applying sustainable seafood production standards such as: GlobalGAP, VietGAP, good farming practices (BAP), organic aquaculture, ecological farming and other international standards according to export market requirements; promote the issuance of farm codes to serve the work of tracing product origin and implementing new rural construction criteria. Implement well the work of preventing and controlling aquatic animal diseases and monitoring the water environment in the province. Timely inform and warn of changes in the water environment to specialized agencies, local authorities and farming facilities in the province.

In Ca Mau province, the functional sector has gradually guided shrimp farmers in the area to replace the traditional shrimp farming process with a model that focuses on biosafety and saves production costs. By innovating the farming process and closing the new stages, risks and losses in the farming process are limited, thereby contributing to saving production costs and reducing product prices. To ensure the brackish water shrimp farming industry is effective and sustainable, Ca Mau province continues to focus on investing in upgrading the infrastructure of shrimp farming areas, thereby creating favorable conditions and reducing logistics costs; automating the stages of feeding shrimp, pumping and draining water... gradually replacing manual labor, saving production costs.

The workshop was organized by the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ca Mau province.

To achieve the goal of sustainable production and enhance the competitiveness of the shrimp industry, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Bac Lieu province recommends that the state invest in building and perfecting the water environment monitoring system in concentrated aquaculture areas, ensuring timely monitoring of environmental changes, information and warnings for fisheries management agencies and aquaculture facilities in the region; supporting localities and shrimp farming provinces in finding and transferring effective waste and wastewater treatment processes in aquaculture, especially in super-intensive shrimp farming.

Making recommendations to localities, Director of the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Dinh Luan commented: The low profits of shrimp farmers are due to many reasons, but the main reasons are high production costs, increasing diseases, and difficulties in disease management in farmed shrimp. Therefore, "The issue of increasing productivity and output must go hand in hand with the profits of farmers and businesses". In addition, businesses need to continue to promote product images to consumers. At the same time, update information from the markets, correctly assess the situation, thereby having the most appropriate and timely response.

Source: VASEP