VN readies for bred fish harvest
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Vietnam is preparing for its first commercial harvest of a new hatchery-bred Mekong fish species following the recent expansion of fingerling production at a government nursery, according to the Mekong River Commission Fisheries Programme.
The development follows years of research into the artificial propagation of Kremp’s catfish (Pangasius krempfi), a highly valuable species known as “trey bong lau” in Khmer. The fish is sometimes referred to as the “Mekong salmon” as it migrates up the Mekong from the South China Sea to spawn.
In 2002, the MRC targeted the catfish for aquaculture development by Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam along with several other fish species native to the Mekong.
According to the July edition of “Catch and Culture”, the Fisheries Programme newsletter, Vietnam’s National Breeding Centre for Southern Freshwater Aquaculture in the Mekong Delta achieved induced spawning of the species in 2008.
With funding from the MRC and the Vietnamese government, the breeding centre in Tien Giang province initially produced relatively small numbers of fingerlings.
Since 2012, however, production has risen to around 200,000 fingerlings a year, up from less than 10,000 a year between 2008 and 2011, making the fish available to private farmers.
Le Minh Nghiem, a farmer who has been buying the fingerlings to raise in cages on the Mekong River in Vinh Long province, told the newsletter that the young fish were “very expensive” but hoped they would provide a more stable source of income than red tilapia.
“By May this year, his fish had grown to about 700 grams and Nghiem was preparing for harvest in July or August by which time they were expected to have reached a more marketable size of about a kilogram,” the newsletter said.
Market does not exist yet
“The dilemma facing the farmer is that a market for hatchery- produced Krempf’s catfish does not yet exist,” it added.
The newsletter said buyers were expected to be dealers supplying upmarket restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City and other parts of Vietnam including Hanoi, where the fish can also command premium prices.
Wild Krempf’s catfish caught from the Mekong Delta were fetching between $5 and $6 a kilo in May, about three times the price of hatchery-produced Sutchi river catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus), known as “trey pra” in Khmer.
“Nghiem said he hoped his hatchery-produced fish would be fetching almost as much as those raised from the wild,” the newsletter said.
Although the fish is known among fishermen in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and southern Laos, it is not familiar to most Cambodian fishermen even though it passes through Cambodia on its way from the sea to its spawning grounds. Visit www.thecambodiaherald.com for details.
