By Ben Ponia 

 

 

SPC’s Aquaculture Adviser was approached by the New Caledonian government to organise a study tour of Vietnam for a delegation from the New Caledonian shrimp farming industry attending the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) Asia-Pacific Aquaculture Conference. The Vietnamese government kindly agreed to this request and a short study tour was organised after the WAS conference. SPC’s Aquaculture Adviser and 10 people from New Caledonia participated in the tour.

 

 

The main tour organiser was the Vietnam Ministry of Fisheries, Research Institute Aquaculture No 1 (RIA.1). Staff from RIA.1 were seconded to the study tour to act as field guides, drivers and translators.

The tour began outside of Hanoi city at RIA.1 headquarters with a presentation from the institute’s director. RIA.1 has 360 staff, of which more than 50 are university graduates who speak English. The institute has a large area with fish ponds and hatcheries for crustaceans and fish, and there is also a feed mill onsite.

Nearby, is the well equipped and staffed Centre for Environment and Disease Monitoring in Aquaculture (CEMA). The centre carries out research and monitoring programmes in water quality, animal health, diseases and genetics. There is also a breeding programme of endemic species that are threatened by extinction.

North of Hanoi in Hai Doung Province, we visited inland freshwater fish and prawn farms. The farms ranged from highly commercialised operations to small household units. Aquaculture is a common livelihood and sufficiently large that some farmers focus only on specific niche opportunities. For example, one entrepreneur who hosted us concentrates on raising fry that he provides to other farmers and this has become a very profitable venture. We also saw village cooperatives with small aquaculture ponds that were integrated with rice paddy fields with a shared irrigation system. Most ponds were farming Nile tilapia but some also had carp species and those farmers who could afford it farmed macrobrachium prawns. One of the village projects we viewed was a small processing facility for smoked tilapia. The smoking provides value-added marketability while improving the product’s shelf life. One recent development was the prolific use of probiotic bacteria in ponds (mostly local species), with anecdotal evidence from farmers that it was improving pond productivity.

The provincial government freshwater seed production facility was a large complex with numerous staff members and live-in dormitories. There was a variety of breeding programmes, including the hybridisation of different tilapia species to produce sterile offspring. The facility is also involved in conservation programmes to restock endangered species such as the giant river carp.

In Quang Ninh Province we visited the provincial fisheries headquarters. There are 80 hectares of ponds onsite with hatcheries for macrobrachium prawn, tilapia and other freshwater fishes such as carp. In the surrounding areas were shrimp farms stocking Penaeus vannamei and P. monodon. Some farms were very large with their own hatcheries supplying juveniles, and many were operating at intensive levels.

At Hai Phong the RAI.1 organised a boat to visit Halong Bay, which is a World Heritage site renowned for its picturesque rock islands. For several hours we visited small marine finfish cage farms scattered throughout the bay especially with large aggregation of farms close to Cat Ba Islands. We also visited an RAI.1 farm where they hold the finfish broodstock for hatchery breeding. A mix of broodstock were being held, particularly the valuable species of groupers for the live reef fish trade but also others such as the fast growing cobia. Many of the fish farm cages also have integrated culture of molluscs such as scallops as well algae. At Cat Ba Island we met the director of a new government hatchery facility. This was a large and modern complex able to cater for fish, molluscs and shrimp species. Technical advisers were being provided by China. It is expected that the facility will be fully commercially self sufficient. Also on Cat Ba Island are other types of aquaculture farms, including a large pearl farm and hatchery.