VietNamNet Bridge - The fisheries industry has fallen into deadlock: shrimp and fish farmers have left ponds idle because of high production costs and low selling prices, while seafood exports are on the decrease.

Tran Hoang Hung, a farmer in Vinh Tan hamlet in Vinh My A commune in Bac Lieu province, suffered a complete loss last year with 10 ha of white leg shrimp ponds.

Hung decided to hatch black tiger shrimp on six ponds this year, but he suffers constant anxiety. “Shrimp have died en masse in our hamlet. Many households have given up,” he said.

Since farmers are still wavering between farming and leaving ponds idle, shrimp breeder sales have been going very slowly. 

Quach Hon Khoa, director of Vietnam-Australia JSC in Bac Lieu province, the nation’s leading shrimp breeder producer, said the company planned to create 8 billion breeders this year, but it has sold 2 billion only.

According to Chau Thanh Huong from the Bac Lieu provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, local people farmed shrimp on 123,500 hectares of surface water area in the first eight months of the year, but the loss ratio is high at 30-70 percent.

“It is estimated that 23,000 ha of shrimp throughout the province have suffered from the environment and epidemics,” she said.

In Soc Trang province, 24 percent of total shrimp hatchery area, or 8,700 hectares, have been damaged.

Catfish farmers have also reached an impasse because of high production costs and low selling prices.

Huynh Van The, a farmer in Ba Trinh commune of Soc Trang province, said he sells catfish at VND20,000 per kilo, or VND1,000 per kilo lower than the production cost.

The has been farming catfish for tens of years, but is now thinking of giving up the job because he cannot see a bright future.

Duong Ngoc Minh, president and general director of Hung Vuong Seafood JSC, said the farming cost is high in Vietnam because of high input costs. 

Feed prices in Vietnam, for example, are much higher than in Thailand, Indonesia and India because the products are distributed through many intermediary distributors. 

While factories sell bran at VND23,000 per kilo, farmers have to pay VND30,000 for one kilo.

Minh remains pessimistic about the fisheries industry, saying that the tough days will last until the end of 2015 or even through 2016. 

It would be considered a success if catfish export turnover in 2015 only decreases by 5 percent compared with last year ($1.8 billion).

Deputy director of the Fisheries Department Pham Anh Tuan also predicted that the upcoming days will be difficult because of political uncertainties in some countries and the currency war.

Tien Phong