AquaFish CRSP Project USAID Grant No.: EPP-A-00-06-00012-00

1. (Mekong Source, 2003) • Wild fish capture in flood-prone areas of the Mekong Delta: • There are 145 species of fish and 14 species of prawns in the freshwater areas of the delta of which, 13 fish species and 3 prawn species are ahigh economic value. • Depending on the flood scenarios (shallow, medium or deep) 14-18 fishing gears were reported. The most common ones were gill net (54.8% of fishers) and trawl net (21.8%). About 10-20% of fishers still used the banned fishing gears. • A total of 36 wild fish species were caught with an average fish catch was 3,514.5 kg/household/year (76% were LVF species),but varied very much (± 7,200.6) by flood scenarios and fishing gears, as well as groups of fish species. • Total production of inland wild fish caught in the Delta is about 150,000 tones per year, varying by flood level.It was estimated that the fish caught per fishing household has decreased about 70-80% compared with that of 10 years before. • High value fish (HVF) were mainly used for: direct retail sale in the local markets (41.8% of the amount of HVF), sold to the local fish traders (26.8%), and used as food for the household (25.9%). • Low value fish (LVF) were: used as feed for the fishers’ own aquaculture (26.6%), for household consumption (20.7%), sold to other households for feeding cultured fish (17.9%), sold to the local fish traders (15.3%), and direct sale as retailers in the local markets (15.3%). • Fishing activities did not cost much but brought about significant and net income to the local households, especially in the deep flood scenario (8.6% of the total annual production costs but 24.6% of the total annual net income). • However, over-fishing for feeding cultured fish has negative effects on the wild fish stock (59.9%), a reduction in the supply of LVF for the poor people (30.2%), and led to the depletion of juveniles of some high economic value species which were insufficient for aquaculture (8.8%). • AquaFish CRSP Project • USAID Grant No.: EPP-A-00-06-00012-00 • “Development of Alternatives to the Use of Freshwater Low Value Fish for Aquaculture in the Lower Mekong Basin of Cambodia and Vietnam: Implications for Livelihoods, Production and Markets”. • This project consists of 5 investigation: Investigations 1, 2 and 5 address the uses and bioecological characteristics of low value fish. Investigations 3 and 4 address alternative feeds for freshwater aquaculture and feed technology adoption. • Investigation 1 titled “Competition and impacts between use of low value/trash fish for aquaculture feed versus use for human food”. This focuses on the low value fish related issues in the fresh water areas of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. • Wild fish capture activities in the flood-prone areas; • Snakehead farming practices; and • Trade and consumption of food fish.

2. (Mekong Source, 2003) • Farming of snakehead fish (Channa sp.) in the Mekong Delta: • Snakehead fish are cultured in 5 typical farming methods, named pond, hapa in pond, hapa in river/canal, cage, and nylon/cement tank. Giant snakehead (Channa micropeltes) were mainly cultured in cage for about 8 months per crop, 85.9% of farmers stocked fish for 1 crop/year while the numbers for common snakehead (Channa striatus) were 4-5 months and 52% of farmers did 2 crops/year). • Three quarters of farmers had to buy fingerlings (the lowest rate was 57.6% in the case of earth pond farms), and only 4.3% of all farmers produced fish seed by themselves. The stocking density ranged from 20-250 fingerlings/m3. • The Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) was 4.0-4.5, for pond culture was lowest (4.17) while that of cage culture was highest (4.58). Low value fish (LVF) was used by most fish farmers and comprised 31.3 – 59.2% of total amount of feed used. Own-caught freshwater LVF covered 9.5-34.8% of total amount of used freshwater LVF. • Survival rates of snakeheads in different culture systems were similar and ranged from 46.1-56.0%. The harvested size of giant snakehead was 0.8-1.1 kg, and that of common ones was 0.6 – 0.7 kg. About 98.2% of the harvested fish were sold and transported in live and fresh forms to many buyers including local middlemen (69.8%) and traders from other provinces (17.7%). • In general, if farmers had to buy all the inputs for snakehead culture, profit was low and percentage of financial losses incurred was high. However, stocking fish in a small scale, using natural freshwater LVF and free labors during the flood season allowed the fish farmers to obtain high profits. • Issues of economic efficiency and the risk of exhausting wild fish which have a negative effect on the availability of cheap food for local people need to be solved when studying the replacement of LVF by other feed sources, in association with the solutions for the lack of production capital and technical knowledge. • AquaFish CRSP Project • USAID Grant No.: EPP-A-00-06-00012-00 • “Development of Alternatives to the Use of Freshwater Low Value Fish for Aquaculture in the Lower Mekong Basin of Cambodia and Vietnam: Implications for Livelihoods, Production and Markets”. • This project consists of 5 investigation: Investigations 1, 2 and 5 address the uses and bioecological characteristics of low value fish. Investigations 3 and 4 address alternative feeds for freshwater aquaculture and feed technology adoption. • Investigation 1 titled “Competition and impacts between use of low value/trash fish for aquaculture feed versus use for human food”. This focuses on the low value fish related issues in the fresh water areas of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. • Wild fish capture activities in the flood-prone areas; • Snakehead farming practices; and • Trade and consumption of food fish.

3. Freshwater fish Traders Fishers : 4.3% Local markets: 94.0 % (Mekong Source, 2003) Fish farmers : 3.6% Other traders: 2.2 % Fish traders: 77.9% Other buyers: 3.2 % Other sellers: 2.9% Outside Prov.: 0.6% Outside Prov: 11.4% • Trade and consumption of food fish in fresh water areas: • More than 94% of traders were female with the average of 12 years in trading food fish in the Mekong Delta. • The average amount of fish traded was 41.5 kg/retailer/day, of which 76.9% was freshwater fish, and 24.2% of freshwater fish was low value fish (LVF). Freshwater fish were more diversified than marine fish, especially in flooding season. The supply of freshwater fish was not only from local fishing but also from aquaculture. • There were 5 factors at the same time that could significantly affect the amount of fish traded per day. They were: (i) the number of the day in the month, (ii) marketing costs, (iii) proportion of freshwater fish of total field, (iv) contract in trading, and (v) sources of fresh water fish. • The average household size in the study areas was 5, and bigger in the case of those practicing aquaculture (5.4 persons). The average monthly profit per household was VND 5.1 mil. and the living expenditure was VND 1.7 mil., of which, 65.5% spent for food. About 63.4% of the cost for food was estimated to be spent for buying food fish. • The average amount of food fish consumed per capita was 77.6 kg which was at the same time significantly affected by the 4 following independent variables (p < 0.05): (i) the household size or number of persons per family; (ii) living expenditures; (iii) amount of wild fish caught by themselves; and (iv) the ratio of shelf-captured fish kept for consumption/total amount of fish consumed. • The most important difficulties in consumption of food fish were: (i) the increasing price of food fish; (ii) the quality and tastes of cultured fish were not good in comparison with wild fish; (iii) sometime difficult to buy the fish; (iv) the size of wild fish became smaller than before; and (v) the fish species for aquaculture in fresh water bodies were not diversified. • AquaFish CRSP Project • USAID Grant No.: EPP-A-00-06-00012-00 • “Development of Alternatives to the Use of Freshwater Low Value Fish for Aquaculture in the Lower Mekong Basin of Cambodia and Vietnam: Implications for Livelihoods, Production and Markets”. • This project consists of 5 investigation: Investigations 1, 2 and 5 address the uses and bioecological characteristics of low value fish. Investigations 3 and 4 address alternative feeds for freshwater aquaculture and feed technology adoption. • Investigation 1 titled “Competition and impacts between use of low value/trash fish for aquaculture feed versus use for human food”. This focuses on the low value fish related issues in the fresh water areas of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. • Wild fish capture activities in the flood-prone areas; • Snakehead farming practices; and • Trade and consumption of food fish.

4. (Mekong Source, 2003) • AquaFish CRSP Project • USAID Grant No.: EPP-A-00-06-00012-00 • “Development of Alternatives to the Use of Freshwater Low Value Fish for Aquaculture in the Lower Mekong Basin of Cambodia and Vietnam: Implications for Livelihoods, Production and Markets”. • This project consists of 5 investigation: • Investigation 1: Competition and impacts between use of low value/trash fish for aquaculture feed versus use for human food. • Investigation 2: Assessment of diversity and bio-ecological characteristics of low value/trash fish species. • Investigation 3: Alternative Feeds for Freshwater Aquaculture Species. • Investigation 4: Feed Technology Adoption and Policy Development for Fisheries Management • Investigation 5: Maximizing the utilization of low value or small size fish for human consumption through appropriate value added product development. COMPETITION AND IMPACTS BETWEEN USES OF LOW VALUE FISH FOR AQUACULTURE FEED VERSUS USES FOR HUMAN FOOD IN THE MEKONG DELTA OF VIETNAM The Mekong Delta of Vietnam often contributes about 55-60% of the total aquatic production and more than 70% of total inland captured fish of the whole country. Fish share 70% of the total amount of animal protein of the local community and can be fresh water and marine species in terms of both wild and captured sources (Sinh, 2005). Low value/trash fish (LVF) is defined as fish that have a low commercial value by virtue of their low quality, small size or low consumer preference, and can be used for different purposes (FAO-APFIC, 2005). Given the strong interdependency between capture fisheries for LVF and aquaculture, knowledge of and information on these two sub-sectors cannot be carried out in isolation of each other. However, there is an increasing conflict between the uses of LVF, as well as a lack of accurate information on the supply and demand for low value fish, especially in freshwater aquaculture in Vietnam. There is a need to better understand the supply and demand for low value/trash fish in order to support the development of a policy and management framework to address aquaculture and capture fisheries interactions. The Aquafish-CRSP project consisted of 5 Investigations of which, Investigation 1 is titled “Competition and impacts between use of low value/trash fish for aquaculture feed versus use for human food”, focused on the LVF-related issues in the fresh water areas of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. This study was carried out from May 2008 to December 2009 in freshwater areas of 8 inland provinces in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Six Focus Group Discussions (FGs) were conducted at village level. Semi-structured interviews (KIPs) were made with 20 local officers at village and district level. A set of questionnaires were designed and pre-tested before interviewing the target household groups: 467 fishers, 615 snakehead fish farmers, 189 food fish traders, and 779 end consumers of food fish. A final workshop which was held in December 2009 to present the results and to obtain the comments from the local participants invited from 8 provinces and other related institutions in the delta.