Agricterra, an alliance of agri-agencies in the Netherlands, has funded a training project on environmentally-friendly aquaculture for Vietnamese farmers in the Red River Delta province of Nam Dinh.

As a result, the project has held 44 training courses for 1,200 farmers and almost 400 campaigning sessions to educate 9,500 seafood farmers in food hygiene and environmentally-friendly farming.

The president of the provincial Farmers' Association, Nguyen Van Thanh, said the project has resulted in the application of green technology by 70% of local farmers in nine target villages of three districts.

Statistics showed that seafood production in all the three beneficiary districts has recorded increases in various fields from productivity to output and product value.

Per-capita income for seafood farmers has also increased to between VND70,000-80,000 (US$3.68-$4.21) a day while production output value upped to VND120 million (US$6,314) per hectare against the national target of VND100 million (US$5,262) per hectare.

Thanh added that his province was to expand education campaigns on food hygiene and high-yielding green aquaculture technology to other villages along the coast and even to the entire province this year.

The provincial administration will also provide technical, financial, material and marketing assistance for seafood farmers to expand production and increase incomes, the provincial farmers' leader concluded.