Vietnamese catfish

To get more information about the raising and processing of Tra in the Cuu Long River Delta, we made a trip to the provinces of Tien Giang, Vinh Long, Can Tho, Dong Thap, An Giang, Soc Trang, Kien Giang and Ca Mau.

In these locales we saw how the farmers made great efforts to achieve the number one position of producers of Vietnamese Tra in the world market over the past decade.

Tra raising business

Tra were originally raised in a family’s pond for daily consumption. When Vietnam opened its doors to the world market, Tra became a commercial product and is now exported around the world.

People in the Delta have shifted the business of raising Tra from a small to a large scale. Many farms and special areas of hundreds of hectares have been established for the production of Tra. Scientific and technological applications in raising Tra have become popular on each farm.

Industrial feed and veterinary medicines are used. Fries are propagated in large-scale hatcheries with a modern process, so the farmers no longer depend on natural fries as before.

Since 2000 Tra raising in the Cuu Long River Delta has made a big leap forward. The fish raising areas total over 5,000ha and have been established in An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho and Vinh Long Provinces. In 2001 the Tra output in the entire Delta was only 100,000 tonnes. The number increased to over 1,000,000 tonnes in 2009, yielding a turnover of 1.4 billion USD. Many fish farmers have become rich due to the raising of Tra.

In recent years, raising Tra has been developed in a sustainable way. Training courses in technology, the environment, the production of breeding fries and feed and using medicines for disease prevention and treatment have been invaluable. Ponds for raising Tra have been encoded. Observation systems in localities have been built to detect on time and precisely the environmental violations and the outbreak of epidemic.

Visiting a Tra farm owned by Nguyen Huu Nguyen in My Phu Commune, Chau Phu District of An Giang Province we saw a system of ponds that included residue ponds and a water treatment system. With this advanced method, his farm was granted the SQF (Safe Quality Food) Certificate in 2003. Nguyen said that over 600 members of An Giang Aquaculture Association had this certificate and most of them had attended a training course on Global GAP (Global Good Agricultural Practices).

Despite the farmers’ endeavours, Vietnamese Tra farming has suffered from many crises during the global integration process. For instance, in December, 2002 a lawsuit on cattle fish dumping into the US market negatively affected Vietnamese exporters.

In another case, Vietnamese Tra products were discovered to have antibiotic residue. Hot growth also caused many environmental problems. Most recently, at the end of 2010, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) placed Vietnamese Tra on the red list which consists of the names of products that consumers in six European countries, including Germany, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland should avoid for environmental reasons. This incident was later solved with the WWF withdrawing its recommendation after Mark Powell, a representative of WWF came to Vietnam to learn about the situation.

These examples show the problems that Vietnamese Tra may face while trying to enter the world market. It was forecast early and Vietnam has undertaken many measures to develop the raising and processing of Tra in a sustainable way, with co-operation from the State, scientists, entrepreneurs and farmers.

Sustainable development

We were told that in order to ensure the sustainable development of aquaculture in general and Tra raising in particular, many local authorities directed the implementation of a quality management programme in close co-operation with the State, scientists, entrepreneurs and farmers.

In An Giang Province, aquatic product processing and exporting companies, such as Agifish, Afiex, Asia Feed, Viet An and IDI have signed agreements with the farmers to establish five concentrated material zones totaling 253.7ha. These meet the standards of SQF 1000 CM, SQF 2000 CM and Global GAP.

In Chau Thanh District of Dong Thap Province, three enterprises, Vinh Hoan, Hung Ca and Docifish, have applied this model to an area of about 70ha. It is expected that in 2011 there will be five more enterprises with about 162ha. In Can Tho City, Binh An Seafood Company (Bianfishco) also has its own Tra farm to ensure a source of clean materials.

To better serve fish raising, the localities also focus on developing the production of fries and feed. The number of fry production facilities has increased rapidly, from 82 facilities in the whole Cuu Long River Delta in 2001 to 5,171 facilities in 2007 and 5,633 facilities in 2008. Dong Thap Province alone has 4,300 facilities; many of them using state-of-the-art technology, thus producing up to over two billion breeding fries in 2009.

Feed for industrial rearing of Tra is supplied by 142 factories (according to the data in 2008). These factories use the local existing source of materials, such as bran, soybean residues and oil-cakes to produce feed for the fish. Their feed is more hygienic, cheaper and friendlier to the eco-system than the feed of animal origin.

For export processing factories, water treatment is compulsory. It is interesting to note that the farmers in the Cuu Long River Delta are intelligent and creative in treating the waste during the raising and processing of aquatic products.

Over the past ten years the expansion of the raising areas and a sharp increase in output resulted in discovering a huge amount of waste from the dredging of the ponds. The farmers use this waste together with an available source of peat in the localities to produce micro-organic fertilizer which is very beneficial to the plant life and friendly to the environment.

Ba Danh, Chairman of An Giang Aquaculture Association and founder of the MekoFa fertilizer plant in Luong An Tra Commune, Tri Ton Town, said proudly: “Due to an abundant source of materials from Tra raising and processing, in 2009, our micro-organic fertilizer product was awarded a gold cup prize by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and a gold medal by An Giang Provincial People’s Committee. MekoFa fertilizer is cheap and it yields higher productivity and quality. It doesn’t harm the environment, so it is much sought after by the farmers. We also have a plan to export micro-organic fertilizer to Australia.”

MekoFa products are supplied to the farms growing blue dragon fruits in Ninh Thuan, farms growing durian, grapefruit and ornamental plants in Vinh Long and Ben Tre Provinces and farms growing rubber, coffee and cashew trees in Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands).

Although the business of raising and processing Tra in Vietnam sometimes has difficulties, Vietnamese Tra farming stands firm and has established its position due to high productivity and cheap prices.

It is nutritious, delicious and suitable for different cuisines around the world. Vietnam’s processed Tra products are diverse and satisfy most of the needs of the world market, including selective ones, such as the US. Vietnamese Tra products have been exported to over 100 countries and territories, accounting for 99% of the world’s market.

Vietnamese Tra products have developed steadily. In the near future a Tra raising association will be established to support and protect its members’ interests. With these solutions, surely Vietnamese Tra farming will prosper and continue to affirm its position and win the customers’ trust.

Tra are carefully selected before reproduction.