In Ca Mau Province shrimp farmers are using the leaves and branches of mam trees (Avicennia) – a species found in abundandance in southern Viet Nam – to feed shrimp. They are earning high profits. In 2000, Nguyen Van Bong, who became the first farmer in his commune in Nam Can District to use the mam tree as feed, said the practice meant that shrimp did not develop disease and were larger than those fed by other methods.
Bong said that if people could eat mam leaves, the shrimp could too and he used one 1.5-2 metre-long branch for every 4 sq. metres of pond surface area. Nguyen Thien Thuc, head of Xom Lon Trong hamlet, said several families had followed in Bong’s footsteps and were earning high profits. He told that has learned Bong’s method and earned about VND5-7 million for each shrimp harvest.
Sau Hung, who lives in Hang Vinh Commune’s Hamlet 4, has also bred shrimp with mam leaves for about two years. He informed that his shrimp were also bigger than those raised with other feed. Nguyen Cong Quoc, head of the Ca Mau Province sub-department of aquaculture, explained that a Can Tho University analysis of the water from the ponds showed that in ponds with water salinity of 1 percent, mam bark and leaves decayed after five to seven days and released nutrients eaten by larva and microrganisms, which, in turn, were eaten by shrimp.
