Listed as critically endangered due to the drastic decline in its population in the wild, the giant carp (cá hô in Vietnamese), or Siamese giant carp, can now be kept and reproduced in ponds in large numbers in Vietnam.
Local farmers have earned incredible profits through raising giant carp, with the scientific name of
Catlocarpio siamensis, in their ponds.
In the wild, the fish are found only in the Mae Klong, Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins in Indochina.
They are so rare that professional fishermen can catch the big fish only once or twice in their life.
But several years ago, researchers at the National Breeding Center for Southern Freshwater Aquaculture successfully domesticated and reproduced the species to offer breeder giant carp to farmers.
Huge profits
Tran Van Binh, the pseudonym a farmer asked Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper to use in this story, from Trung Hoa Commune, Cho Gao District of the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, is one farmer who has become successful after breeding cá hô.
Binh said he earned VND1 billion (US$48,100) after two years of raising cá hô in his 30,000 square meter pond.
“I had 2,600 young cá hô fish in 2009 and harvested nearly ten tons of the fish over two years.
“I never thought that I had a billion dong in the pond.
“The survival rate of the giant fish in my pond was 95 percent. After two years, each fish weighed four kilograms on average,” Binh recounted.
Food for the fish does not cost much because they mainly eat water plants and moss that forms in the water.
With the average price of cá hô sitting at VND130,000 ($6.3) a kilogram, the farmer received a turnover of VND1.3 billion ($62,500), a billion of which was profit, he recalled.
Another farmer, Dang Van Loi, from the same commune as Binh, also struck it rich through breeding cá hô.
He had 1,100 young cá hô in 2011 and collected 900 fish a year later, each of which weighed 1.5kg to 3kg.
“With hundreds of millions of dong in profit from cá hô, I felt as if I had won the lottery,” Loi admitted to Tuoi Tre.
Nguyen Trong Tuy, head of the department of aquaculture of Tien Giang, said raising cá hô has become increasingly common in his locality in recent years thanks to its high economic value.
Because cá hô mainly eats water plants, owners need to buy just one kilogram of industrial foodstuff on average to produce an equal number (one kilogram) of cá hô. A kilogram of industrially-processed foodstuff for fish costs VND13,000 ($0.6), or one tenth of a kilogram of cá hô.
The suitable density for raising cá hô is two square meters of pond surface per fish, according to an official from the National Breeding Center for Southern Freshwater Aquaculture.
Although the fish species grows well in the enclosed environment of ponds, it is facing big problems in the wild.
In 2010 the center released 50,000 young cá hô into the Tien River in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap but a survey showed that few of them survived long enough to reach a weight of over one kilogram.
Unstable consumption
The main consumption source of cá hô is restaurants in cities, said the wholesaler Nguyen Thanh Trung in Cai Be District of Tien Giang.
However, diners prefer fish weighing 1.5kg to 2kg, while farmers tend to harvest when they weigh 4-6kg to make more money.
Finding a way to export the precious fish is still under negotiation, so its price is expected to fall in the near future due to increasing supply, said Tuy, the aquaculture department’s chief.
Keeping cá hô alive since they are harvested until they end up on a dining table in the city is another issue because they have to struggle to survive environmental changes while being transported.
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Đăng ký: VietNam News