Vina Cleanfood invests heavily in high-tech shrimp farming

Vietnam Clean Seafood Corporation (Vina Cleanfood) has been investing heavily in agriculture, completing a high-tech shrimp farming area which has higher productivity in the last two years.

New technology solution

In the vast shrimp farming area on the My Thanh River, adjacent to the East Sea, in Lieu Tu commune, Tran De district, Soc Trang province, a large-scale high-tech shrimp farm has just emerged.

Vina Cleanfood is one of the leading seafood processing and exporting enterprises in Soc Trang province. The 15-year-old company has been investing heavily in aquaculture, building a complete shrimp farm on an area of ​​140 hectares.

This year, its shrimp farm enters the second year of operation. Inside the facility, all rearing ponds must follow strict requirements of hygiene and disease prevention. Workers are equipped with protective clothing and visitors must disinfect before entering the farming area.

The farm area is designed with a self-filtering and continuous culture water pond system. On the ground, nearly lined 240 floating ponds are built with lightweight concrete structure, being connected to the electrical system, water supply and drainage pipes and covered by sunshade grid.

Aquaculture engineers at the farm said the water is filtered and cleaned before being poured into the ponds. Quality of shrimp seed are also strictly controlled before they are put in the ponds.

Shrimp farming process is established based on the application of high technology, suitable with soil and biological conditions. Engineers closely check aquatic food and bioproducts and antibiotics are not allowed. The farm has a factory specializing in manufacturing probiotics with capacity of 6,000-8,000 liters/day.

In 2020, Vina Cleanfood raised three white shrimp crops per year. The yield of 1ha water surface reaches 12 tons/crop. By the end of October, the farm harvested more than 2,000 tons. Next year, the productivity is expected to hit the maximum of  3,500 tons.

The quality of shrimp meets the Aquacutlure Stewardship Council (ASC) standard which is eligible to export to the EU.

Invest in good products

Vo Van Phuc, Vina Cleanfood’s chairman said the company has invested more than VND350 billion (US$15 million) to establish an advanced farming area, ensuring good control of each processing stage.

According to Phuc, this is a new shrimp farming model that has proven success by rigorous experience of a leading seafood company in Vietnam. In addition, Vina Cleanfood’s engineers have also improved and added some technical measures to suit to coastal shrimp farming areas in Soc Trang province.

He said high-tech shrimp farming could considered the second major transformation of Vietnam's shrimp.

In the past, Vina Cleanfood has successfully experimented with small-scale farming. Later on, to have origin certification to export, the company began expanding the scale of farming areas.

However, in the Mekong Delta region, there are not many enterprises investing in high-tech farming sector. The farming area of ​​Vina Cleanfood only meets 30% of the factory’s processing capacity.

Soc Trang province has a brackish water shrimp farming area of ​​nearly 55,000 hectares. In the past 3 years, the canvas-lined shrimp farming model accounts for about 30% of the total area. Thanks to increased productivity, shrimp production increased by 2-3 times.

"The hi-tech shrimp farming model does not need a large area of ​​land, the 1-2ha farming households can still apply. From the experience of Vina Clearnfood, we are ready to provide technical assistance to cooperatives and farmers."

The door is open for many businesses to promote their resources and bring the Vietnamese shrimp industry reaching out the world.