Can the pangasius industry take full price advantage?

Not enough fingerling pangasius for farming areas

Pangasius prices are increasing, currently at VND 32,000 - 33,000 per kilogram. If fish farmers are good, they can earn up to VND 8,000 - 10,000 per kilogram. Although seeing the high profit of pangasius farmers at this time, few households dare to take risks to raise fish like before.

The farming area has issued some ponds to households with the capacity and conditions to raise processed fish under a long-term association contract with an enterprise. Some fish-farming households that have managed to stay alive have overcome this difficult period and have started renting ponds to rerelease fish.

The biggest obstacle for people who want to stock fish at this time is not finding a sufficient supply of pangasius fingerlings. The fingerling pangasius price has increased to  VND 45,000 per kilogram, increasing over VND 10,000 - 15,000 per kilogram compared to the end of 2021. Most pangasius hatcheries do not have enough fingerling pangasius to deliver to farmers.

According to the Fisheries Management Sub-Department of localities with pangasius farming areas, in 2021, the place for raising pangasius will reach more than 5,856 hectares, an increase of more than 10% over the same period in 2020.

Compared to 2020 - 2021, it can be seen that the area for raising pangasius in 3 months, July, August, and September in 2021, will decrease by about 30 - 55% compared to the same period in 2020. However, the area for raising pangasius in 3 months is approximately 30 - 55% compared to the same period in 2020. in the months of 3-6 and in October and November 2021, it increased sharply compared to last year.

For many years, the Directorate of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) has continuously proposed many solutions to build closely linked farming areas. Special attention is paid to improving the quality of fingerling pangasius for commercial fish farming.

Innovating growth model

According to the Directorate of Fisheries, there are 96 pangasius hatcheries nationwide, of which 80 are operating hatcheries and more than 2,280 pangasius hatcheries. The output is estimated at over 30 billion pangasius fry and over 3.4 billion pangasius fingerlings.

Recently, to improve the growth rate, improve the nursery stage's survival rate, and resist pyogenic liver disease, the project to produce high-quality fingerling pangasius by the Aquaculture Research Institute 2 was carried out in 3 phases. Period: In the period 1 to 2012, nearly 102,000 pangasius broodstock were replaced, replaced with oversized broodstock, poor fertility, and low survival rate. Also, providing and supplementing the broodstock population is in short supply for production farms in the Mekong Delta.

Phase 2 (2015 - 2020) provided 60,000 pangasius. Now, these fish have started spawning.

By the third phase, from 2022 to 2025, it is expected that the Aquaculture Research Institute 2 will continue to produce and supply high-quality breeding stock of 75,000 fish to the Mekong Delta provinces.

The supply of selected pangasius broodstock to increase growth is significant for commercial farming, especially for the 3-level project on joint production to provide enough high-quality pangasius fingerlings for the Mekong Delta.

In addition, currently, enterprises such as Nam Viet, Vinh Hoan, and Viet Uc all have their own research programs to select, produce and supply high-quality fingerlings for internal programs and can be supplied to the market.

The Directorate of Fisheries continues to develop other projects and tasks to improve the quality of fingerling pangasius for commercial farming and direct the production and supply of high-quality fingerling pangasius to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Along with strengthening cooperation and chain linkage, the localities of Long An, Hau Giang, Tien Giang, Soc Trang ... continue to promote cooperation and chain linkage for small and small farming establishments to ensure production stability.

Also, the Mekong Delta provinces continue to implement the Project "Link to produce high-quality 3-level fingerling pangasius in the Mekong Delta", especially for Dong Thap province, and complete and well operate the production chain of 3-level fingerling pangasius in An Giang province.

As of December 31, 2021, the pangasius farming area in the Mekong Delta has more than 1,200 valid certificates of farming pond codes with nearly 6,500 ponds, an area of ​​nearly 5,300 hectares. In 2022, the pangasius industry plans to produce commercial pangasius from 1.6 to 1.7 million tonnes. Export turnover reached over US$ 1.6 billion.