August 12, 2010

Mekong Ltd Co receives quality seal

Mekong Ltd Co gets the Global Good Agricultural Practice, or GlobalGAP, accreditation for farmed aquaculture products and International Food Standard certification, the first in Tra Vinh Province, Vietnam.

The company has received the GlobalGAP certification for exactly half of its 30 hectares of tra farms. It has an annual output of 7,000 tonnes of products and provides nearly 900 jobs paying an average of VND2.5 million (US$131.5) a month.

The eighth local firm to get these accreditations has also been exempted from anti-dumping tax in the US. The certification covers breeding quality and origin and antibiotics used.

The Tra Vinh Sub-Department of Aquaculture and authorities in Cau Ke, Tieu Can and Chau Thanh Districts plan to follow up on this success and help 150 tra farms adopt clean farming technologies and obtain SQF-1000CM certification to meet export requirements.

Tra Vinh farmers raise tra catfish on around 100 hectares of water in the Hau and Tien Rivers, producing more than 16,000 tonnes a year and earning export revenues of US$4 million.

By 2015, the province plans to expand the area to 2,900 hectares and 3,900 hectares by 2020 when output will top 248,000 tonnes.