Technical and financial aspects of freshwater prawn-rice farming system in Ca Mau and Tra Vinh province

Abstract

This study was conducted through the interview of 30 households (per district) applying the giant freshwater prawn - rice - tiger shrimp farming systems in Tra Vinh and Thoi Binh province province. The study aimed to evaluate the effects of texhnical, and economical efficiency of the prawn farming in order to contribute to sustainable development of faming system in the brackish water area of the Mekong Delta. The results showed that the primary reinforcement in agriculture of Ca Mau province has the age range from 25 to 65 while in Tra Vinh province the number is from 23 to 64. The education background in two province quite high but the pecent of illiteracy in Tra Vinh is higher than in Ca Mau province. The average yield of cultured shrimp in Ca Mau was 82.4kg/ha/crop with a total cost is 20.5 million VND/ha/crop and total income from aquaculture is 12.4 milion VND/ha/crop and a total income from aquaculture is 12.4 milion VND/ha/crop, brought about a total net profit of 19.7 milion VND/ha/crop. In Tra Vinh, the farms were in average of 1.18 ha, Prawn seed were stocked at average density of 6 inds/m2 and the size is 1.31 cm the total production of shrimp was 115 kg/ha/crop with total cost of 19.5 VND million/ha/crop and total income from aquaculture was 21.65 VND million /ha/crop, brought a total net profit of 26.5 VND million/ha/crop. Major difficulties for shrimp cultured included: (1) difficulties in water management; (2) diseases; and (3) shrimp seed quality.