Vinh Long province, in Mekong Delta, expects the measures implemented to boost the pangasius farming industry sustainability make it possible to increase its farming area to 460 hectares this year and reach an output of 80 thousand tonnes.
The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters & Producers (VASEP) highlights that in the last years the province has introduced many solutions to reorganize production in the direction of enhancing chain linkages and community management models such as GAP-certified manufacturing cooperatives.
In this regard, VASEP points out that linkages have been set between farms and seafood processing factories as well as between farms and shops selling aquatic materials and linkage through outsourcing of production processes.
These linkages have brought many benefits to farmers and processing enterprises as well as input supply enterprises.
In particular, businesses have been able to create large production areas and mechanized themselves into the fields to increase labour productivity. In turn, these measures helped businesses to have stable material areas to meet the production requirements in accordance with their plans, thus reduced the scarcity of raw materials for production, purchasing raw materials at high prices or increasing input costs of products.
At the same time, these created favourable conditions for enterprises to build, develop and advertise their trademarks for export products in order to raise the competitiveness of enterprises on the market.
Besides, VASEP states that farmers also saw benefits when joining the chain as they are guided by leading enterprises in terms of production techniques, provided with sufficient seeds and supplies for production and even cash advance to cover living expenses; higher incomes thanks to improved production efficiency and stable income.
To restructure the sector, Vinh Long province has also focused on developing commercial aquaculture areas with diverse models and cultured species and obtaining international standards as well as Vietnamese Good Agriculture Practice (VietGAP) standards.
At present, Vinh Long province has an area of 257.62 hectares of pangasius farming which are certified. Of which, 75 hectares were certified by GlobalGAP/ASC standard; 40 ha were certified by the international standards + VietGAP; 142.58 ha of VietGAP standards.
