April 12, 2006

Shrimps die en masse in southern Vietnam
 

Insufficient water supplies and farmers' failure to adopt scientific techniques despite training given have greatly diminished shrimp stocks at farms in Vietnam's Ca Mau province.

Other provinces in the Mekong delta and some western provinces have also reported mass deaths, driving shrimp prices up by 28 percent to VND180,000-VND200,000/kg (US$11.3-US$12.5) from VND140,000-VND150,000 (US$8.8-US$9.4).

40 percent of Ca Mau's ponds were badly affected, with four-fifths of their stocks wiped out, the provincial fisheries department reported.

An over-stretched irrigation system and the proliferation of prawn farms in recent years have strained water supplies, Nguyen Thong Nhan, the department's deputy director, said.

While the area for shrimp farming has exploded from a few dozen hectares 5 years ago to 240,000 hectares at present, the irrigation network has remained little changed.

Irrigation works only received one-tenth of the VND4 trillion (US$251 million) needed for upgrades, according to Nhan.

Nhan also attributed the fiasco to farmers' failure to apply rearing methods taught to them at free training courses.

Polluted water is released into water channels when shrimps die in farms along the upper parts of the irrigation network. Farmers in the lower reaches of the network used the polluted water directly without checking acidity and salinity levels, thus causing a domino effect.

The shortage is expected to last until mid-May or June, when the southern region harvests a new crop.