Vietnamese seafood processors will have to deal with the imminent shortage of pangasius catfish at the end of this year as many local farmers have given up farming, the Youth reported, citing an official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Luong Le Phuong, deputy minister of the Agriculture and Rural Development said farmers are tired of begging processing companies for purchase of oversized pangasius at low prices, but the situation will change late this year.
As farmers have been incurring big losses as their fish remain unmarketable and material prices remain low, many of them in the Mekong Delta region have decided to give up farming after they sell off their remaining fish.
Phuong said Mekong Delta region farmers suffer loss of VND500-1,000 a kilogram of pangasius catfish.
The Vietnam News Agency cited the Dong Thap Aquaculture Association as saying that the area of ponds which have been left idle since the fish crop has reached 10 per cent-15 per cent of total farming area of the province.
In Chau Thanh district, over 30 per cent of households have left ponds idle; some others have narrowed farming scale in order to cut down expenses on feed and breeders.
Phan Van Danh, chairman of the An Giang Agriculture and Seafood Processing Association, the province that has the highest tra fish output in the Mekong Delta, said that 20 per cent-30 per cent of households do not breed fish anymore, and most of the remaining ones are small- and medium-sized. And many of these have scaled back on production.
Danh said that the fish output in An Giang province in the last months of the year will decrease by 20 per cent-30 per cent.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), catfish exports generated US$750 million of revenues to Vietnam in the first seven months of 2008. The figure is expected to rise to US$1.2 billion by the year’s end, up by VND200 million from previous year. (The Youth, VNA)
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