Building a seafood consumption chain

(Quang Ngai Newspaper) - To sustainably develop the fisheries industry, one of the solutions that needs to be focused on is promoting cooperation and association in the production, processing and consumption of aquatic products.

Link to purchase seafood at sea

The province currently has nearly 200 vessels providing purchasing and logistics services for fisheries at sea, concentrated in Ly Son and Binh Son districts and Quang Ngai city. The associated service vessels provide raw materials for processing factories and seafood processing facilities in and outside the province. In addition to purchasing seafood, the service vessels also supply fuel and necessities for fishermen exploiting seafood at sea. Fisherman Le Tan Sy, in Tan Hy 1 village, Binh Dong commune (Binh Son) shared, before, I only had small capacity vessels specializing in purchasing seafood in offshore areas. However, in order to meet the needs of fishing vessels, in 2018, I invested 2.4 billion VND to buy a large vessel, with a capacity of 730CV, operating in both offshore and offshore areas. In addition to purchasing seafood at sea in large quantities, we also provide services to supply food, provisions, and fuel to fishermen when needed.

After exploitation, fish are sold by fishermen to traders, there is no chain connection.

The development of fleets of seafood purchasing vessels at sea has made the production process at sea of ​​fishing vessels more convenient; the quality of exploited products is sold promptly, creating a source of high-quality input materials for enterprises and processing facilities. “Currently, I have 3 vessels providing seafood purchasing services at sea. I only need to call the fishing vessel to know which sea area they are in, and I will come to the place to purchase. After purchasing, the seafood will be transported to shore immediately to sell to customers. Thanks to that, the seafood remains fresh and can be sold at a higher price than the vessels that take a long time to reach shore,” said fisherman Le Bang, in Binh Dong commune.

Currently, the province has nearly 5,200 fishing vessels, of which nearly 3,100 are specialized in offshore fishing. However, the number of vessels providing logistics services is still quite modest, so many fishing vessels still cannot access these services. Deputy Head of the Department of Fisheries and Sea Islands of the province, Ta Ngoc Thi, said that many enterprises and seafood purchasing and processing establishments have linked up with fishing vessels by "injecting capital" to invest in costs, lending money to their partners before going to sea and purchasing seafood output after the vessels dock. However, this is only a "secret" association activity that is fragmented and not really sustainable.

The chain of links has not been built yet.

In aquaculture, the whole province has nearly 480 hectares of brackish and saltwater aquaculture, with an output of about 10,000 tons/year. Of which, about 15 hectares of black tiger shrimp, nearly 290 hectares of white-leg shrimp, with an output of nearly 4,800 tons. However, the province has not yet built a chain linking production, processing and consumption of farmed shrimp products. The output of post-harvest shrimp is mainly consumed in the domestic market, through distribution channels of wholesale markets, supermarkets, traditional markets, and restaurants. In addition, a small number are purchased, processed, frozen by enterprises and exported to markets in countries such as China, Korea, Thailand, etc.

Building a value chain for aquatic and seafood products is one of the important solutions for sustainable development of the aquaculture industry. However, building a linkage chain still faces many difficulties. There is no "common voice" between enterprises and fishermen and aquaculture farmers. According to Mr. Ta Ngoc Thi, the Plan to implement the national program for effective and sustainable fisheries development in the period of 2022 - 2025, with a vision to 2030 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment sets out two tasks: directing and guiding the building of a linkage model for the chain of exploitation - purchasing - preserving - consuming seafood; supporting associations, unions, and enterprises to coordinate with localities to build wholesale markets, seafood auction markets, linked to fishing ports, and fishing centers of the region and area.

To achieve the set goals, the professional sector needs to guide fishermen in fishing unions to participate in joint activities in fishing, provide technical guidance on classification, preservation, and preliminary processing to create a stable supply of products. At the same time, there should be a mechanism to encourage seafood processing enterprises to invest in preservation and preliminary processing technology for fishermen and purchase through contracts. For farmed aquatic products such as shrimp, enterprises need to proactively link with farming households from input to output, in order to create quality products, ensuring the prescribed criteria.

Article and photos: AN NHIEN

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Source: https://baoquangngai.vn/kinh-te/bien-kinh-te-bien/202503/xay-dung-chuoi-lien-ket-tieu-thu-thu-thuy-san-72547aa/