Hello sustainable growers.
Today, in this video, we're going to go to Vietnam and we're going to visit a farm of
Basa.
You know Basa is one of these catfish from Asia that is sold everywhere in the world.
That's one of the most farmed fish.
So today we go and we visit the fish farm in Vietnam that's a really big fish farm and
that's a special fish farm that is sustainably certified.
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Today we are in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta visiting a Basa farm, and this farm is a bit
special because it's certified ASC and GLOBALG.A.P., which means Aquaculture Stewardship Council
and Global Good Aquaculture Practice which is actually two certifications of sustainability.
So here we got 11 ponds, really big ponds.
You can see at the back.
And they are really full of Basa, which is a fish that is sold everywhere in the world.
And sorry.
I wearing some glasses because the sun is very strong here so I have to keep those glasses.
Otherwise, I would not be able to make this video correctly.
So here we can see some kind of floats or boats where we got some fish food prepared
to feed.
Oh excellent.
Can we go in?
Lady: Yeah.
Jonathan: Excellent and how many fish do we have in those ponds?
Lady: It’s about 700 tons.
Jonathan: 700 tons per pond?
In this pond, we got 700 tons of fish.
Wow!
That's crazy.
And so we got 700 tons of fish and then when you grow to which size?
You grow them to which size?
To 1 kilo?
Before you harvest them?
Lady: Usually, I keep until the suitable size for production.
Jonathan: Oh, for the production, yeah.
Lady: And then we harvest.
Jonathan: Yeah, and so what is a suitable size for production, approximately?
Lady: It depends on the contracts.
Jonathan: On the contracts, yeah?
So it goes from what?
500 grams to 2 kilos?
Lady: Yeah.
Jonathan: Approximately?
So when those fish reach the maximum size, what is going to be the maximum quantity of
fish you will have here?
Lady: It’s maximum about 850 when we will harvest.
Now, don’t keep until 1 kilo.
Jonathan: How much food has been thrown in the water right now?
What is the quantity of food?
Lady: They feed twice a day.
Jonathan: Twice a day?
Yeah?
Lady: And each time it’s about 5 tons.
Jonathan: 5 tons?
So 10 tons a day.
Wow!
Okay.
700 tons?
And they feed 10 tons.
Okay.
Wow!
That's impressive.
And so they're going to harvest them soon as you say.
They're going to harvest 70 tons per day of fish.
Right?
Lady: Yes.
Jonathan: So Basa is a fish that is sold everywhere in the world because the flesh is really white.
It doesn't have a very strong flavor, and it's very cheap, as well.
So it can be sold to anyone, any market, and there is a big market in the U.S., in Europe,
and even in Australia we got also a big market for Basa.
And those fish we can feel the bones.
Right?
The three bones one here, one there and one there, very strong.
So you can see from the fish, from the external look of the fish you can see how it's grown,
if it's grown in good conditions or if it's grown in very high density.
Here for example, we can see that the fins are damaged.
So the fins are still there.
You know, you can see some cases where it's way worse but you can see that the fins are
damaged.
You see normally, it's supposed to be one big fin, one nice fin, but here you can see
that the rays are broken so the fish are not grown in the best conditions even if it's
probably one of the best farms I have visited in Asia.
You can see that the fish are still raised in very high density and they damage each
other.
So Basa is a fish that can be raised in high density in very poor water quality.
Here the water looks pretty good, but anyway in aquaponics, we always try to maintain a
low density of fish to keep the fish in the best conditions and to avoid any stress.
And if you avoid all the stress on the fish, you're going to avoid all the diseases.
So you don't have any disease on your fish.
You don't have any problem, and that's very easy to grow your fish.
Lady: This is about 1 kilo.
Jonathan: 1 kilo.
So all the fish are approximately this size here.
Right?
Lady: Average size.
Jonathan: Average size.
Lady: Yeah.
Average size is about 800.
Jonathan: 800?
Lady: 800 grams.
Jonathan: Ah yes, I understand now.
800 grams.
Yes.
So now we're going to go and feed the fish.
So you can see that to go and feed the fish, we use some nice rafts and those rafts are
going around the rope so it allows us to go all around the pond.
So we go from one way to another and we make sure to feed the fish during the journey.
So in this way, we are sure to throw the food everywhere around the pond.
So all the fish have access to the fish food.
That's very important actually in aquaponics and in aquaculture.
You want to make sure that all the fish have the same chance to have access to the fish
food and they can eat as much food as they want or as they need.
And the reason why that if you throw the food only from the shore you're going to have all
the big fish that are going to come and the small fish are not going to have access to
the food because they're going to be pushed away.
You can see the quantity of fish that there is in this pond.
It's just crazy.
Can you imagine 700 tons of fish in one pond?
That's huge.
So if you put all the food at one point, you're going to have a big concentration of all the
big fish that are going to fight to have access to your food, and the small ones are not going
to be able to reach it.
So here you can really see we spread the food everywhere so all the fish they just have
to swim to the surface, and they can directly eat.
So we do it twice a day or in this fish farm they feed twice a day.
I used to work in other fish farms where we used to feed three times or four times a day,
but here they do it only twice a day.
At this time of the year, at this specific temperature, they throw 10 tons of fish food
for 700 tons of fish which means they are feeding at 1.4%.
Here, they are fishing the pond and the fish is into those nets.
They will bring the net forward towards this place here and all the fish are going to be
here.
They’re are going to be able to catch it, put it into the yellow bucket, and then some
workers are going to bring it into this boat.
And in that boat there are some little tanks, I mean big tanks, actually.
And this boat can hold 25 tons of fish.
So basically, the whole pond is going to come into this boat here and then the boat is going
to go to the factory where the fish are going to be processed.
How many workers are working for this farm?
Lady: It’s about 15.
Jonathan: 15?
Lady: 15.
Jonathan: Okay.
So here in the factory, they are slaughtering the fish so they simply put the fish straightaway
into cold water.
So you see there is a bit of ice in the water so the water temperature is very low.
And as you know, the fish metabolism -- the fish activity is completely dependent on the
water temperature.
So when you put the fish into this water, into this cold water, the fish are going to
slowly decrease their metabolic activity and they're going to die.
And that's supposed to be a very human way to kill the fish, but also, it preserves the
quality of the flesh because there are no bacteria that can grow at this temperature.
So the flesh of the fish is remaining very, very good.
So the farm we just visited was a farm made of pond dug into the soil into the ground
but here we can see on the way back, I could see on the top of the Mekong River some floating
cages farms.
So here they grow the Basa into the Mekong River, thanks to some cages.
That's exactly the same system as we saw when we went to Cambodia, and we got a video about
it on YouTube.
I hope you enjoyed the video and it was interesting for you to see how the Basa was produced and
processed.
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to subscribe to the channel.
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We got the six-step guide to help you to build and to manage your aquaponics setup in the
best conditions.
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Have a good crop!