Vietnam pangasius fish from the rural market goes to the world

Tra (Pangasius Hypophthalmus) and Basa fish (Pangasius Bocourti) have been cultivated for a long time by Mekong Delta farmers, but for a long time, it is just a kind of food sold in the countryside markets in the Southern region.

It was not until the end of the 1980s that pangasius was paid attention by a businessman and introduced to foreign partners. From here, Tra and Basa fish started a long journey from the countryside market to the world, with the contribution of many generations of businessmen, farmers, scientists and organizations at home and abroad.

A fish just deal in countryside market

No one knows exactly when the tra and basa fish were raised by Mekong Delta farmers. In the memory of the childhood of Mrs. Truong Thi Le Khanh, Chairman of Vinh Hoan Joint Stock Company (Dong Thap), who had spent all her childhood life on the banks of the Mekong River in the border with Cambodia, in Long Binh town, An Phu district, An Giang, by that time, floating cage fish farming on the Mekong River is practiced by expatriates living in Tonlé Sap lake (Cambodia). Among the fish species raised in floating cages by farmers, there are Basa fish. As for Tra fish, from dozens of years ago, many farmers catched Tra fish fingerlings from the wild and stock them in ponds.

At that time, the Basa fish was called by the local fish as a "Bụng" fish and it had a bulging white belly that contained 2 big fat leaves. Farmers buy fingerlings from natural exploitation, bring them into cages, then make feeds with rice bran, water spinach ... Just simply as it and basa fish, which are well grown up with white meat, greasy and delicious taste. By the time of harvesting, the cage owners driving his fish cage to sell in wholesale markets. After that, the fish distributed spreadly throughout the markets of the Mekong Delta and gradually became a familiar food in the meal of many Southern people through typical dishes of the delta such as sour soup, braised fish...

By the 1980s, tra and basa fish were still local products, spontaneously farmed by farmers and consumed in rural markets. No one has thought of commercializing tra and basa fish, not even thinking about organizing production and exporting.

Going to the world

By the end of the 1980s, randomly basa fish was paid by attention of some Vietnamese and Australian seafood entrepreneurs. The first Vietnamese businessman realized the potential of basa fish export is Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung (nickname: Muoi Hung), Director of Export Frozen Enterprise no. I (now Saigon Export Frozen Food Company) in Ho Chi Minh City.

Regularly returning to the Mekong Delta to purchase fishery items/products for export, Mr. Hung is familiar with the image and taste of basa fish through the rustic dishes here. Realizing that basa fish with white flesh, greasy, easy to process many dishes and can replace sea fish, Mr. Muoi Hung began to think about processing and exporting this kind of fish. Hung introduced basa fish with Australian partners, and was accepted by them.

In 1987, under the guidance of Australia's Independent Seafood Company, Export Factory I began processing basa fillets. Later, Independent Seafood Company ordered 2 tons of basa fillets brought to Australia as a model, introduced to consumers in this country. That fish was quickly welcomed by Australians. Soon, Independent Seafood officially ordered the next batch of basa fillets. And Mr. Muoi Hung was enrolled in the history of the pangasius industry as the first person to bring Vietnam tra and basa fish to the world market. It is an important premise for Tra and Basa fish to change their status, from a product that is just around the countryside market to transform itself into an export product, from the village pond to the vast sea of the world market.

Farming is formed

Not only that, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung is also a pioneer in organizing basa farming towards mass production of goods in order to proactively control materials source.

Over the past 30 years, tra and basa fish have come a long way, from a spontaneous farming product, to meet local needs, becoming a major manufacturing industry, from the rural market to the world market. Journey to the ocean of tra and basa fish has a silent contribution of generations of businessmen, farmers, scientists and organizations at home and abroad. It is these people with their hands and brains that together awaken a great potential of the Mekong Delta from a precious gift that the Mekong has given to this land:

Pangasius Hypophthalmus (Tra) and Pangasius Bocourti (Basa) fish.

In 1988, he joined with Mekong Company in Chau Doc (An Giang) and invested 300 taels of gold so that the company could build 10 floating cages for raising basa fish on Hau river. He pledged to cover all fish production. Since then, the farming of basa fish cage culture in Chau Doc has developed rapidly and rapidly expanded to other places. The increase in fish materials helps to gradually establish basa products when there are more new factories specializing in processing and exporting this product.

In the early 1990s, basa farmers began to consider replacing this fish by Tra fish (pangasius hypophthalmus). The reason is that investment in a fish raft is very expensive because it has to use good wood, but basa fish cannot raise too much in rafts, so the production cost is quite high. Meanwhile, pangasius, though the color of the meat is not as bright as basa, but low in fat, high recovery rate and can be kept at high density.

Previously, Tra fish was only raised in ponds so the value was low because the meat was yellowish or lemon yellow, and only consumed locally. When moved into floating cages, Tra fish grow very well, the percentage of fish with white meat quality increases sharply, profit is 30 - 40% higher. Some factories boldly purchase tra fish and processing for export with name called River Cobler.

When it comes to the world market, Tra with lower price than basa and with pinky white, has been quickly accepted. Since then, the trend of floating cages raising from basa fish to tra fish has become stronger. Ms. Truong Thi Le Khanh said that this is an important milestone marking the transformation of farming methods, contributing to improving the quality of exported fish meat.

By 1993, some big commercial Tra fish cage owners started farming fish in ponds instead of rafts. The reason for this is because floating raising costs quite high, and every time the farmers walking on wooden cages, they make a "creaking" sound, causing the whole group of fish in the raft waving vigorously, stabbing their heads into rafts wall. This both causes stressed to fish and affected growth, and increases food consumption.

Unlike pond culture, while Tra fish is still only a local product, farmers of commercial catfish ponds have combined cage and traditional pond raising by digging ponds on islet or along river banks to take advantage of water level up and down tide to adjust the amount of water coming into the pond. As a result, fish keep the white color of the meat in a stable way, giving higher productivity than cage raising fish. This is the best form of Tra fish farming, so it has been rapidly replicated and maintained until today, thereby contributing to bringing the Pangasius production to over 1 million tons in the years by.

Artificial reproduction

In order to develop Tra fish farming and become a major agricultural product industry in the Mekong Delta, there is also a significant contribution of successful reproduction of pangasius seed and the emergence of industrial feeds for catfish.

In 1994, French and Vietnamese scientists succeeded in artificial reproduction of Tra & Basa fish in the Department of Fisheries (Can Tho University). In 1996, the CIRAD (France) organization started the Asian Catfish Project with the participation of four countries, Vietnam, Indonesia, France and Belgium. One year later, the project 's Tra/Basa artificial reproduction research team tested on tra and basa for reproductive criteria between two fish species.The results exceeded expectations when Tra was able to reproduce many times more than Basa. Moreover, the research team also solved the problem of fry fish eat each other in stage of nursing fish in the pond by applying an appropriate water level and nutrient environment. After being completed, artificial breeding techniques and pangasius rearing techniques have been transferred to the people, forming the production of catfish breeding in the Mekong Delta. This is also an important leverage for the strong development of farming and pangasius production.

(Nong Nghiep Vietnam, 02.Jan.19, Thanh Son)

Video clip (in Vietnamese lang.) of Basa fish (P. Bocourti) floating cages in Dong Thap province, just few one available in Mekong delta nowadays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lj5BYzG1fg

TKL