About FAO Viet Nam’s Sustainable Shrimp Farm project

FAO is supporting the Government of Viet Nam to bring more sustainable and organic shrimp farming methods to farmers. In Viet Nam, aquaculture industry is growing in a very fast paste, annual production growth rate for 2013 – 2014 reaching about 20%, and shrimp farming is contributing approximately 50% in this sector. However after a recent devastating shrimp disease outbreak, it was assessed that 15-20 percent of monetary loss was resulted to farmers, affecting a significant part of the total farming areas.

Therefore, in the collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), FAO will be implementing a one-year technical assistance project in two important shrimp farming provinces in the Mekong Delta’s Bac Lieu and Soc Trang provinces. As these provinces were hardly affected by the disease outbreak, FAO will assess the disease situation and find organic and sustainable farming methods for small scale shrimp farmers.

Shrimp farmers and social protection

Aquaculture has contributed significantly to economic growth and poverty reduction in Viet Nam. And brackish water aquaculture has increased dramatically in the past few years, and helped improve income of the farmers living coastal areas. However after the disease outbreak, the small-scale and poor farmers have been the most vulnerable as compared to others. Moreover, the unplanned development of shrimp farms in the mangrove forest has caused environmental problems and sustainability concerns. From this project, FAO expects to increase the resilience of small shrimp farmers and improve environment benefit of shrimp farming through identification and demonstration of improved farming practices in the context of climate change.