The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Yet shrimp farmers say the financial rewards are too great to ignore.
Just like his father and grandfather, Tang Van Tuoi struggled as a rice farmer.
He slept under a roof fashioned from coconut palms, earning just enough to support his family.
But when saltwater started creeping into his rice fields — he saw an opportunity and started harvesting shrimp.
“Now everything is developed, we have vehicles, roads, things have changed massively,” he told AFP from his polished living room, where a flatscreen TV hangs over a wood furniture set.
Even in a bad year, he can earn more than he did as a rice farmer. In a good year he can rake in upwards of $40,000.
Flush with cash, he has built three homes for his family.
“We have money, we have enough of everything,” said the father of six, as his granddaughter played a video game on a smartphone nearby.
But he admits that such farming is a gamble.
His ponds have been hit by disease and pollution.
Attuned to the long-term risks, the government has resisted opening the whole region to the shrimp industry even as seawater continues to seep further inland.
– Food fears –
Instead, authorities have ploughed millions of dollars into sealing off freshwater zones needed to grow rice — the nation’s staple — throughout the Mekong Delta.
The strategy is in part to ensure the region can grow enough rice to feed the country, a historic pillar of the communist government’s centrally planned economy.
But as the country has embraced market reforms, the lure of exporting high-earning shrimp — mainly to Europe and the United States — has become increasingly attractive.
This year, the prime minister called for shrimp exports to reach $10 billion by 2025, a jump from $3 billion last year.
In parallel, export earnings from rice have steadily declined since 2011, bringing in $2.2 billion last year.
“They’re trying to thread a needle between making money off of exports and economic development, but also not sacrificing long-term food security,” said Tim Gorman, a Cornell University PHD researcher.
As a result, policies both encourage the quick cash generated by shrimp farms and protect the long-term future of the rice crop.
That can seem contradictory or haphazard to farmers.
In some areas, the government is now urging farmers to grow rice half the year and harvest shrimp for the other half — a hard sell to farmers like Thach Ngoc Cuong who are eager to abandon rice.
He has two plots in Soc Trang province, one contains freshwater for rice, the other is salty for the prized crustaceans.
“I would be very happy if we could raise shrimp on the rice side,” he said.
