Better use of nutrition resources for sustaining aquaculture production in Central Vietnam under climate change condition

Project summary

This project is proposed to the Danish government for funding and scheduled to be implemented from April 2012 to April 2015.  The main objective of the project is to contribute to the sustainable development of coastal aquaculture in Central Vietnam under climate change condition through better use of available nutrition resources.

The project will be managed by ARSINC as the main responsible institution in collaboration with DTU Aqua, Denmark and other institutes and universities in Vietnam in the field of research.

Expected outputs of the project are: (i) Reports on Central coastal aquaculture sector  including analyses of culture system and practices, farmer’s livelihood and their vulnerability to climate change associated incidents as well as  possible ‘aquaculture based’ adaptation measures of  livelihoods.  (ii) Cost-effective grow-out pellet feeds for a selected commercial carnivorous fish species developed as a case study to replace the use of trash fish- traditional feed and in response to global limitation of fish meal and fish oil. (iii) Farming techniques of non-feed based species and integrated multi-trophic species developed, demonstrated and promoted. 01 PhD and 03 MSc students educated through the project’s research activities as part of research capacity building for Vietnamese partners. (iv) Adapting measures and techniques for coastal aquaculture farmers disseminated including policy recommendation.

The main results obtained in the project will be jointly published in international peer-reviewed journals by the involved partners. It is anticipated that the project will lead to a minimum of 3 publications. The results will also be presented in national and international scientific conferences. Reports, policy recommendations, and technical guidelines will be disseminated through the Vietnam’s administrative system, target stakeholder and project website.

The overall objective of the present project is to contribute to the sustainable development of coastal aquaculture in Central Vietnam under climate change condition through better use of the nutrition resources.

Work package 1, the report on analysis of current aquaculture systems in Central coast region are completed, which is useful input for proposed adaptive culture techniques and policy recommendation.

Outputs

Project Completion Report

The project generally achieved its outputs in all four main work packages to fulfill the project’s objectives. In Work package 1, the report on analysis of current aquaculture systems in Central coast region and the reviews on reviews of known environmental effects of traditional diets for fish farming were successfully completed. In Work Package 2, a costeffective formulated feed for permit (Trachinotus falcatus) was developed and tested.
Results of the experiment showed that fish fed experimental diet (BCA diet) had comparable or even better growth and feed utilization than commercially available feed (two type of commercial diets), however formulated for other marine fish species. Seven related articles were published of which three articles were published in international peer reviewed journals. For work Package 3, Nursery techniques for hard shell clam (Meretrix lyrata ) in earthen pond is established and demonstrated on farm scale. Two articles were published in national scientific journals. Culture techniques for selected commercial macro algae species, Kappaphycus alverezii was improved by selecting right mesh size of protecting net and by co-culturing with Seabass (Lates calcarifer). Experiments on integrated aquaculture models were also completed. Four MSc students of the project had graduated by the end of 2015. The PhD students submitted his thesis on July 2017. In Work Package 4-Communication and Dissemination, all training courses, study tours were organized for local farmers and extension. A workshop on introduction of adaptive aquaculture techniques in response to climate change and policy recommendation was organized. Policy recommendation is posted in the project website.