Farmers feed tra fish in a Mejong Delta locality. (Photo: VNA) With about6,000ha of the farming area and an output of over 1.5 million tonnes, tra fish isamong the key fishery commodities of Vietnam. The country’s tra fish productshave been exported to more than 140 markets in the world, bringing home about 2 billion USD in annual export value. Vietnam’s tra fish production and the relatedfood safety and hygiene control system have also received positive assessmentfrom the US Food Safety and Inspection Service.
However,there remain certain shortcomings and problems in the production, processing, environmentaltreatment, connectivity, and sale in the tra fish industry, heard the workshopheld by the Directorate of Fisheries at the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (MARD), the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), and the VietnamPangasius Association.
PhamThi Thu Hong, Vice Secretary General of the Vietnam Pangasius Association,cited research findings that show to produce an average of 200 tonnes of fishper ha, at least 320 tonnes of feed is needed and 256 tonnes of organicsubstances will be discharged into the environment. Besides, there are morethan 100 tra fishing processing establishments nationwide with the designedcapacity of 1.5 million tonnes of raw materials each year. Though equipment andtechnology for producing by-products such as fish oil and powder are relativelymodern, they haven’t been able to make full use of fish blood, thus worsening thepollution of water used for processing.
That has resulted in an environmental challenge to tra fishing farming andprocessing, she said, holding that to secure sustainable development for thetra fish industry, it necessary to pay due attention to environmentalprotection, especially appropriate and highly practical solutions to waste fromfarming and processing.
The workshop in Can Tho city on October 5 (Photo: VNA) Given this,he noted, the MARD put forth the initiative of establishing a PPP group involvinguniversities, research institutes, businesses, and domestic and foreignorganisations to devise ideas for reducing emissions in each link of the trafish chain.
In addition, PPP will help provide more information about the domestic andforeign markets in order to facilitate innovation, studies, and application tobring emissions down to the lowest possible level, thereby maintaining the reputationof Vietnam’s fishery products, including tra fish, in international markets,Luan added.
Hong saidthat following the global trend, the Vietnamese Government has committed toreducing emissions. Importers of Vietnamese fish also hope and pledge to cutcarbon emissions by 20 - 30% during 2025 - 2030, so they want suppliers offishery products to carry out emission reduction initiatives accordingly.
Therefore,fish farmers and processing businesses of Vietnam need to curb emissions duringthe production process to concurrently ensure product quality and keepemissions low, thereby promoting their competitiveness and maintainingreputation in the global market, she remarked./.
VNA
