Sprinkle rice bran on the pond, the giant tiger prawns grow rapidly.

There are many farmers who research, study and apply new methods to production and bring about quite high economic efficiency. A typical example is Mr. Hoang Manh, Ong Chung hamlet, Dat Moi commune, Nam Can district (Ca Mau province) who has succeeded with the model of raising shrimp in still water.

Since spreading rice bran in shrimp ponds, each year, after deducting expenses, Mr. Hoang Manh's family earns about 400 million VND from shrimp, 4 times higher than before.

Previously, Mr. Manh's family implemented the traditional extensive shrimp farming model. However, due to increasingly harsh weather conditions and increasingly polluted environment, traditional shrimp farming became increasingly difficult. In 2014, Mr. Manh started to switch to still water shrimp farming.

However, to successfully implement this model, the breakthrough factor lies in Mr. Manh's creativity, which is spreading bran (rice bran) into the shrimp pond.

The reason for this bold decision, which is considered unique and strange, is that he visited and studied areas where growing one rice crop on shrimp farming land had brought about efficiency. However, because Nam Can is a district near the sea, the salinity in the water is very high, so it is impossible to grow rice on shrimp farming land. According to his thinking, if straw is spread into the shrimp pond, it can also bring efficiency, but if bran is spread in, it will be more effective, because bran has more nutrients than straw, and he began to implement it.

Mr. Hoang Manh harvests tiger prawns raised in ponds. These ponds were sprinkled with rice bran by Mr. Manh before releasing the tiger prawns.

Mr. Manh shared: “To implement this model, every year I usually renovate the shrimp pond in the third and fourth lunar months. After renovating, I treat the water source with rice bran. 30 kg of bran per hectare. The water source is dark green, after 3 days of adding rice bran, it turns into light tea color, then I release the fry."

To avoid the situation of baby shrimp and bran flowing into the river, in the first 3 months, he only releases water once a month, each time releasing about 20% of the water volume in the shrimp pond and then taking the water back in. He continues like that until the shrimp are 4 months old, then he gradually starts harvesting. At this time, the shrimp have an average weight of 25-30 shrimp/kg. Notably, each year he only releases shrimp twice, each time 400 thousand tiger prawns.

Previously, when implementing the traditional extensive shrimp farming model, Mr. Manh's family only made a profit of about 100 million VND per year. Since implementing the rice bran-spreading still-water shrimp farming model, his family has earned an average profit of 400 million VND per year after deducting expenses. Meanwhile, he only intercrops one type of aquatic product, crab. Each year, his family earns about 200 million VND more from crab.

Although the effectiveness of spreading bran into shrimp ponds has not been verified by the industry, in reality it has been proven through 5 years of Mr. Manh's application and has brought about very high efficiency. Therefore, Mr. Manh's method is worth replicating so that people can develop a sustainable economy./.