Development of aquafeed industry in Vietnam and its challenges
2006
Le, Thanh Hung
Recently, the aquaculture industry of Vietnam has developed rapidly, especially shrimp and catfish production for the export market. The aquafeed industry started in Vietnam in 1998. It is estimated that at present, the industry can annually produce 200,000-250,000 tons formulated feed for shrimp and 300,000-350,000 tons for catfish feed. This rapid development is linked to the construction of new feed mills and the demand for intensification of the farming systems.The market for shrimp feed is nearly saturated with 20-30 feed mills of which the foreign investors are in dominance. The seasonality of shrimp farming makes feed mills operate only 5-6 months per year. Ingredients for shrimp feed production is mostly imported which makes the cost of feed very high when compared to those produced in neighboring countries. The market for catfish feed still has room for further development. The production of catfish feed is estimated to reach 500,000 tons in a couple of years. Even though the production of catfish is very high in Vietnam, the nutrient requirements and other nutrition studies for the Vietnamese catfish is in its infancy when compared to the knowledge accumulated for channel catfish in the United States.
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