Finally, last Saturday, he persuaded Cadonimex of Dong Thap Province to buy 100,000 kilograms at VND13,900 each.

This price meant Phap lost VND150 million (US$9,287) in the bargain, but he was not unhappy.

“I’m lucky to sell my fish,” he said.

“These days, the longer you hold on to your fish, the more you will lose.”

In recent months, tra fish farmers have found it hard to sell their products as processors are reluctant to buy.

Aquaculture processors and exporters in the Mekong Delta blame the tight credit policy that makes it difficult for them to borrow working capital from banks.

Small- and medium-sized businesses in particular lament their dire shortage of funds after banks began to toughen up on loans, even dollar loans which used to be relatively easy to secure.

Many businesses hesitate to sign new export contracts with foreign partners for fear they will not be able to make good on them.

Most tra exporters are also bound to a US$3 per kilogram cap in existing contracts and cannot increase prices to offset their financial difficulties.

According to the Mekong River Delta Fisheries Association, tra farmers harvest around 100,000 tons every month.

But processing plants are only buying small quantities.

The 20 factories in An Giang Province are working below capacity these days.

The chairman of the An Giang Fisheries Association, Phan Van Danh, said most of them only worked at 30 percent of capacity.

For tra farmers, the lukewarm demand has been pushing prices down.

In just the last two weeks, a kilogram of raw tra has fallen by VND500 to VND14,000.

In areas along the upper parts of the Tien and Hau rivers, the price is even lower – just VND13,800.

“A tragic situation”

In this period of rising costs, this fall by several hundred dong in price is serious for most aquaculturists.

The prices of grains and other agricultural products have been shooting up worldwide, pushing up the prices of fish feed fourfold this year.

The costs of other aquaculture inputs too have gone up by 40 percent, according to the chairman of the Can Tho Fisheries Association, Bui Huu Tri.

He said it now costs farmers VND16,000 to raise a kilogram of tra.

“And with the current price for raw fish, farmers lose VND2,000 on every kilogram they raise.”

Meanwhile, banks have become tough on fish farmers.

Dinh Cong Thanh of An Giang Province, a long-time customer of the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, said he had been refused a VND500 million loan by the bank.

“The bank said it is not lending any more, just calling in repayments,” Thanh said.

Other farmers said this bank still lent, but loans were difficult to get, and interest rates were around 1.8 percent per month.

Feed and other suppliers too are tightening up.

They are unwilling to let farmers buy first and pay later as they traditionally do, and are starting to call in old debts.

Some tra farmers said they had to mortgage their house or land to secure high-interest-rate bank loans or sell motorbikes to raise cash.

In a double whammy, aquaculturists’ customers – processors and exporters – are not paying them promptly.

An Giang farmer Tran Van Tuong said two customers still owed him hundreds of millions of dong though they should have paid already.

“I’ve decided to sell two fish ponds earlier than normal to manage my other ponds and pay off bank loans,” Tuong said.

“Unfortunately for me, my customers are delaying payments.”

Ngo Minh Tan of the Dong Thap Fisheries Association said tra farmers, once they sold mature fish, were no longer raising a fresh crop.

The An Giang association’s Danh said 20 percent of tra-farming households in his province had stopped farming.

“This is only a rough estimate. The actual figure may be much higher.”

Tri of the Can Tho association said many tra farmers might have to abandon their business altogether because of rising costs and falling prices, and this might affect tens of thousands of people working in the field.

“Never before has the situation been as serious as now,” Tri said.

“The tra fish are swimming to the brink of bankruptcy.”

Source: Tuoi Tre