32 MARCH 2015 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG For several decades, seed production and farming of marine shrimp in Vietnam has been growing rapidly, with diversification of species, systems and intensification, scales and types of organizational structure. During different phases of development, innovation in seed production and farming of marine shrimp has contributed significantly to the socioeconomic development of the country in general and the Mekong Delta in particular. This article presents major development milestones and the current status of seed production and farming of marine shrimp in Vietnam as a success story and lessons learned by the aquaculture industry. Development of the Shrimp Industry in Vietnam Aquaculture in Vietnam started in the 1960s and developed through different phases (Tuan 2013). According to the FAO (2014), Vietnam is ranked as the third largest aquaculture producing country, with a production of more than 3 million t in 2012. Of the different commodities produced in aquaculture, marine shrimp has developed through different phases and become a very important industry recently. The first trials on seed production of marine shrimp were conducted in the 1970s in the north of Vietnam with Penaeus merguiensis and Innovation in Seed Production and Farming of Marine Shrimp in Vietnam Tran Ngoc Hai, Pham Minh Duc, Vo Nam Son, Truong Hoang Minh and Nguyen Thanh Phuong P. penicillatus. In 1984-1985, black tiger shrimp P. monodon were successfully produced in the central provinces and become important species for seed production (Quynh 1992, Nien and Lin 1996). In the Mekong Delta, shrimp seed production started in 1988 with local species (P. merguiensis and P. indicus) and then shifted mostly to black tiger shrimp in 1997 (Hai et al. 2003). Pacific white shrimp L. vannamei was introduced to Vietnam in 2000, developed rapidly in the central provinces and then in the Mekong Delta since 2007. A development timeline of shrimp seed production is summarized in Figure 1. In 1986, 3.3 million postlarvae were produced from only 16 hatcheries. By 2005, 28.8 billion postlarvae, mostly black tiger shrimp, were produced from 4,280 hatcheries. This very impressive growth was due to socialization of shrimp seed production, especially small-scale hatcheries, to meet the need for shrimp farming. However, there has been a great change since 2005, when the number of shrimp hatcheries has gradually decreased but the scale expanded rapidly, especially for Pacific white shrimp. By 2012, there were only 1,715 hatcheries remaining but production reached 67 billion postlarvae, of which 30 billion was Pacific white FIGURE 1. Development timeline of shrimp seed production in Vietnam. FIGURE 2. Number of shrimp hatcheries and production of postlarve in Viet Nam from 2002 to 2012 (Directorate of Fisheries 2013). FIGURE 3. Timeline of shrimp farming development in Vietnam.
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