Preliminary treatment of tuna fish at Tam Quan Bac fishing port.

Among districts in Binh Dinh, Hoai Nhon has quite robust seafood exploitation industry with more than 2,217 fishing boats, total capacity of 278,464 CV. Most of them exploit tuna, cuttle-fish, etc.

The fishing has encountered a lot of difficulties such as decreasing aquatic resources, increasing gasoline and materials, poor post-harvest protection of seafood products in spite of long fishing trips, complicated weather pattern, climate changes, etc. These issues cause rather big losses to the fishermen.

Given such challenges, it is necessary to establish mutual-help groups among the farmers in the seafood exploitation, in searches of the fishing fields, in transportation and sale of the products, in protection for the fishermen during their trips.

Hoai Huong commune People’s Committee worked out a plan of building a model “community-based mutual help group of seafood exploitation” in 2010. The plan was partly financed by Binh Dinh Agriculture and Fishery Promotion Centre.

The group included 5 owners of off-shore fishing boats, led by Mr. Le Reo – owner of the boat BĐ 95627 TS. Mr. Phan Van Bang – owner of the boat BĐ 95609 TS – was the group leader’s assistant. The other 3 members were Mr. Nguyen Van Viet – owner of the boat BĐ 91017 TS, Mr. Nguyen Thi– owner of the boat BĐ 95152 TS and Mr. Cao Van Hai -– owner of the boat BĐ 95489 TS. Total workers of the 5 boats were 45.

They were equipped with 5 long range walkie-talkies and 5 three-function GPS fish finders. The group has so far done 10 fishing trips (30-35 days/trip) with total revenue of nearly 1.56 billion VND and the total net profit was 371 million VND.

Since then, the model has been expanded all over the commune. Hoai Huong now has 650 fishing boats which belong to many community-based mutual help groups.

Fishery exploitation output of Hoai Huong is fairly high while outputs of other localities are decreasing. During the first 5 months of 2011, Hoai Huong fishermen exploited 5,013 tonnes of seafood, achieving over 40% of expected annual output. The average monthly income of the fishermen reached VND5-10 million per capita.

The model has been also successful in Tam Quan Bac commune, whose fishermen majored in tuna catching with fishing fleet of more than 400 boats. There are 12 mutual help groups in Tam Quan Bac; each group has 5-8 boats with 40-50 fishermen.

Average tuna output is 1 tone per fishing trip. The average mothly income of tuna fishermen is 3-4 million VND per person. Monthly incomes of fishermen in other fishing practices range from VND8-10 million VND per person.

Total fishery exploitation output of the commune in the first 5 months of 2011 reached 3,650 tonnes or over 42 percent of the expected annual output, in which tuna output was 1,950 tonnes, said Mr. Pham Ngoc Bao, Vice-Chairman of Tam Quan Bac People’s Committee.

The model had actually reaped fruitful results in Hoai Nhon district. The local government would continue to expand the model, said Hoai Nhon People’s Committee.

Ms. Mai Kim Thi, Head of Binh Dinh Department of Fishery Resource Exploitation and Protection: In order to enhance the fishery exploitation output of the fishermen, the department has carried out model of the community-based mutual help groups in fishing. Hoai Nhon commune has 5 groups; Quy Nhon city has 1 group. They are all equipped with modern tools and equipments to practice effective fishing, to help together in emergency cases at bad weather, to protect the fishing fields. The department will expand the model more and equip more equipment for the fishermen, such as satellite communication devices, GPS devices, Icom, etc. Training courses for the fishermen on laws of marine fishing will be organized so that the fishermen will be timely informed of the fishing at dispute high seas. With such understanding about the situations, they will take precautions against that.

• Nguyen Han