Due attention is needed.

(Baonghean.vn)Aquaculture is an important sector for a large number of people in coastal communes. Currently, our province is developing strongly in all three sectors: aquaculture, processing and exploitation. However, in order for the aquaculture economy to develop more strongly and sustainably, there needs to be a unified focal point to regularly direct and pay attention to this sector.

With an annual output of 40,000 - 50,000 tons of seafood, attracting 6,500 - 7,000 workers to regularly serve and catch seafood. In addition, the annual aquaculture area is about 14,000 hectares, of which nearly 7,000 hectares are farmed by industrial methods. The total annual seafood output is from 20,000 to 25,000 tons, including tiger shrimp, crab, clams... The processed seafood output is from 20,000 to 25,000 tons, including fish sauce, shrimp paste, dried seafood, frozen seafood... Along with that, the infrastructure and fishing services serving Nghe An's marine economy through many development policies have met the basic conditions: Cua Hoi fishing port, Lach Quen fishing port and Lach Van fishing port. In addition, there are also private fishing ports, fishing logistics service facilities...

Looking back at the development of economic organizations serving all three sectors over many periods, each period has its own ups and downs. In the exploitation sector, previously, according to boat units and teams, there were 10-15 workers/boat. Normally, to build a fishing boat, there was often a joint capital contribution from 1-3 families or more. In the year (1994-1995), the Government's offshore project was born (a 4,000 billion VND project), which promoted the formation of a new economic organization: the aquatic exploitation cooperative was born.

Fisheries exploitation cooperatives in Dien Ngoc (Dien Chau) are effective.

And only existed for a few short years, these cooperatives collapsed and dissolved because they did not operate in accordance with the nature of cooperatives. These cooperatives were established with the purpose of meeting the "necessary" conditions to access the project, which managers considered to be "backwards" cooperatives to access the project. At this time, Nghe An had 27 aquatic exploitation cooperatives, accessing only 38 offshore fishing vessels of the project. But when large vessels with large engines were put into use, some problems arose in that the technical level of the crew did not meet the requirements.

In addition, at that time, whenever a ship had an accident or broke down, they had to go all the way to Ho Chi Minh City to buy spare parts because they were not available in Nghe An market and some neighboring provinces. They even had to invite workers from Ho Chi Minh City to repair and replace spare parts, which was very expensive. Moreover, the ship was large, consumed a lot of fuel, was inefficiently exploited, lost money on oil... and did not do business effectively. Remember, at that time, the locality with the highest debt collection revenue was Dien Chau district, but it was only 7% (Dien Chau had 12 ships). After the operation could not pay off the loan, which was not true to the nature of the cooperative, the State's policy was to liquidate the offshore ships of the cooperative. The ships that could still operate were sold to private individuals for better management, repair, and exploitation.

After many years of ups and downs, the profession of fishing has been affirmed to exist with the fishermen of the coastal communes of Nghe An. Therefore, it is not by chance that currently, the whole province of Nghe An has established about 139 fishing cooperatives to link and support each other on long offshore trips. Fishing cooperatives are established voluntarily, based on the consensus of fishermen in the same area and fishing grounds to promote the spirit of cooperation, mutual assistance and support of the members in fishing, product consumption, flood and storm prevention and search and rescue at sea, contributing to hunger eradication and poverty reduction; protecting and developing aquatic resources and being a militia and self-defense force operating at sea, contributing to maintaining security and order and protecting the sovereignty of national waters.

Establishing cooperatives is very beneficial for fishermen. During fishing at sea, if they run out of raw materials, oil, ice, fresh water, or food, only one ship can return to the mainland to both transport products to shore for consumption and refuel and provide food for other ships fishing offshore.

This saves fuel and increases income for members of the fishing team. At the same time, when encountering natural disasters or storms at sea, one boat can support another. Or if an exploration ship discovers an area with a lot of fish, all 3-4 ships in the same team will focus on fishing, increasing the output many times over the individual catch. Dien Ngoc commune (Dien Chau) alone has established 8-9 fishing associations, with hamlets as the organizing unit, each association includes 3-5 ships working together to fish offshore. The association is also the unit receiving State policies.

In the processing sector, Nghe An has a tradition of processing fish sauce and other frozen seafood. Previously, there were large-scale households producing hundreds of tons of fish sauce, but they were still household-scale. Now, a larger scale has been formed: Seafood processing villages. And many private seafood processing enterprises have appeared such as Phuong Mai - Quynh Luu Enterprise... Nghe An's processed fish, shrimp, and dried squid products are exported to many countries around the world, bringing in quite a large revenue in this sector.

In the field of aquaculture, previously it was mainly spontaneous farming on a household scale, but now many aquaculture cooperatives and groups have been formed, concentrated in the two districts of Dien Chau and Quynh Luu. Cooperatives and groups in all three areas of exploitation, farming and processing have contributed to promoting comprehensive development of aquaculture production: increasing export aquatic raw materials, exploiting the potential of brackish water surface areas for the aquaculture foundation, creating a leap forward in aquaculture breeding (shrimp, crab, monosex tilapia). Diversifying the design and brand of aquatic products, expanding the consumption market.

In recent years, Nghe An province and local authorities have had many policies and solutions to manage and promote the development of this sector, but they have not been fully implemented, and some policies are only on paper. The State management of fisheries is the Department of Agriculture, but in reality, many sectors are in charge of this sector: the Cooperative Union, the Farmers' Association, local authorities and the Fisheries Associations. Therefore, the attention is not unified, not synchronized, and is subjective in nature. Therefore, it has not met the practical requirements of this sector.

Quynh Lan