As the shrimp farming schedule issued by Directorate of Fisheries, The shrimp crop in the beginning of 2007 just started for 3 months but thousands of farmers in Soc Trang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau province could not start to stock shrimp because of effects caused by Climate change: (i) abnormal weather, (ii) off-season rain (iii) Temperature difference between day and night time is big (from 5 to 7oc). In addition, suitable water source for a new crop was not available, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh – Director of Shrimp cooperative Thanh Dat shared “Now, lots of the cooperative members have done with pond bank and floor preparation but the salinity in water was so low for shrimp farming, we have waited for months” 
Recognizing the farmers’ difficulties, ICAFIS and Lasan Company co-organized a dialogue “advanced shrimp farming technologies in the context of climate change” with the attending of leading aquaculture specialists and representatives from shrimp farmer groups/cooperatives to find the suitable technical solutions for farmers to prepare their ponds for the new crop. In the dialogue, the attendants discussed solutions in short term and long term to tackle climate change and sketched a training content on the issue for farmers.
After the dialogue, ICAFIS, Soc Trang Fisheries Department and Lasan company have organized training courses on advanced shrimp farming technologies in March and April to help farmers to be ready for a new successful crop: (i) On March 27, 28, a training course organized for Hung Phu cooperative in Cu Lao Dung Islet; (ii) On April 15, a training course organized for Hoa De, Thanh Dat and 14/10 cooperative.
The content of training courses focused on (i) Shrimp pond preparation, (ii) Creating natural feed for shrimp; (iii) Shrimp stocking methods and (iv)shrimp pond environment management in the context of climate change. Besides presentation by a lecture, the questions – answers section had big amount of time; in the section, farmers shared their difficulties they faced and asked lecturers for solutions and received other farmers’ own experiences. The training courses partly helped farmers to become more confident to start a new crop in the context of climate change. “Long time ago, farmers raised shrimp by their own experiences accumulated from years when water environment and weather were favorable for shrimp farming but the experiences are not applicable in the context of more and more severe weather and polluted/unstable water environment, I wish the project will organize more training courses like this to enhance farmer’s capacity” spoke by Mr. Trong from Thanh Dat cooperative.
In the context the negative effects of climate change have become more and more severe, in coming months, the SusV project will continuously collaborates with provincial Agriculture and Rural Development Departments, Fisheries Departments, Agriculture Extension Centers and other stakeholders to organize more training courses on advanced technologies to help shrimp farmers to be more confident to adapt climate change.
Vu Thuy - ICAFIS
