Harvesting tra fish in An Giang Province (Source: VNA) An Giang (VNA) - Tra fishbreeds producers in the Mekong Delta have been urged to closely work withresearch institutes, universities and scientists to apply advanced farmingtechniques to produce high quality breeds.
Tran Dinh Luan, deputy head of the Directorate of Fisheries, said that such breedswere needed to meet breeding requirements.
Luan said that tracing the origin of bred fish was also important as tra fish,a freshwater fish bred in the delta, is one of the country’s top seafoodexports, following shrimp.
The country exported 1.8 billion USD of tra fish in the first 10months of the year, an increase of 24 percent year-on-year, with more than 2billion USD expected by the end of the year, according to the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development.
China, the US and the EU are the country’s three largest tra fish importers.
Tra fish breeders in the delta, the country’s largest tra fishproducer, have farmed 4,472ha of tra fish as of the end of September,up 10 percent against the same period last year.
In the delta, tra fish breeders have applied advanced farmingtechniques to improve yield and quality.
Many tra fish breeders in the delta have applied VietGAP or GlobalGAPstandards.
To ensure traceability, Delta provinces and Can Tho City thatbreed tra fish have been granted identification numbersfor tra fish ponds that meet required conditions.
Dong Thap province has granted identification numbers for349 tra fish breeders who had raised a total of 1,500ha as of July.
Many provinces in the delta have been breeding more tra fish sincethe Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development released an instruction toincrease production of tra fish in the remaining months of the year.
Dong Van Lam, chairman of the Tra Vinh province People’s Committee, said theprovince plans to develop tra fish farming areas to 470ha in 2020 and580ha in 2025.
It will also spend about 4.6 trillion VND (194 million USD) to buildinfrastructure for breeding, processing and sale of tra fish.
The province, in cooperation with research institutes and universities, isusing high-tech methods to produce tra fish seeds andraise tra fish.
The province has 52ha devoted to raising tra fish, down by 50 percentagainst 2016.
The export turnover of tra fish is forecast to hit 2.1billion USD in 2018, up 22 percent from 2017, according to the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development.-VNA
VNA
