A tra fish
farm in Dong Thap province’s Thanh Binh district.(Source: VNA)
The area has increased by 20 percent to 1,381ha, including 200ha
of new ponds.
The price of the fish at the pond has risen by 5,000-6,000 VND per kilogramme
since last year to 28,000-30,000VND (1.2- 1.3 USD), fetching farmers large
profits.
So far this year nearly 300ha of tra ponds have been harvested, with output
being more than 100,000 tonnes, up nearly 5 percent year-on-year, according to
the Dong Thap Fisheries Sub-department.
Le Hoang Vu, head of the sub-department, said the province is developing a
model of tra farming based on contracts between farmers and processors.
Under the contracts they sign, farmers do not worry about working capital or
selling their output because the processors provide them with fish feed and
farming techniques.
In more than 60 percent of the breeding areas farmers have adopted quality
standards such as global GAP or VietGAP.
Most tra processors in the province either manage to sign deals or have their
own breeding areas to secure more than 60 percent of their raw fish supply.
The prices of the fish are expected to remain high because export demand
remains high while output has not increased much.
With tra fetching high prices, many farmers in Dong Thap are digging ponds even
in unzoned areas to breed the fish.
Tan Hong district and Hong Ngu town have 43ha and 18ha of new ponds in unzoned
areas.
Nguyen Van Hoang, a local in Tan Phuoc commune, said the selling of paddy
fields for turning them into tra ponds has gathered pace in the last two
months.
Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Vice Chairman of the Tan Phuoc commune People’s Committee,
said competent agencies have been ordered to work with farmers to stop the
digging of tra fish ponds in unzoned areas.
People continuing to dig in unauthorised areas would be reported to the
district’s People’s Committee, he warned.
Source: VNA
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