Rent-A-Hatchery: A different approach to hatchery production

摘要

In Vietnam small-scale hatchery operators can rent one or two rearing tanks from a building owner to produce small numbers of fry or PL shrimp over relatively short periods of time. Its simple, versatile and it works.Recently I visited the 2013 Asia-Pacific Aquaculture Exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and in the days before the event I had the opportunity to visit a few small hatcheries in the area of VungTau, around 100km east of HCM City.A few aspects of these visits were particularly interesting to me, especially as they contrasted with my western model of aquaculture businesses in terms of scale, infrastructure and specialization.I know that there are Vietnamese hatcheries that are as sophisticated and complex as typical western hatcheries and with large infrastructures and specialized staff that result in high productivity and large outputs of fry or PLs, but the model that interested me was the traditional, very flexible and versatile hatchery operation I visited for the first time on this trip.