Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Aquaculture & Fisheries

Prior to 2006, the predominant method for culturing snakehead in Vietnam and Cambodia was to collect wild juveniles from natural sources like the Mekong River and Tonle Sap. Particularly in Cambodia, aquaculture farmers, who were also fishermen, would collect their own fingerling snakehead. They would then also collect “small fish” (also known as low-value fish or trash fish) from natural sources, chop them up and feed them to the snakehead in culture. A conflict existed between users of these fish: the aquaculture/fishing people and the remainder of the Cambodian population who rely on small fish (Fig. 1) for a variety of products, including fish sauce and prahok, that provide protein to the Cambodian people throughout the year. As a result, and to protect the nutrition of the Cambodian people, aquaculture of snakehead was banned in the country in 2004.

NOP 18-397 (English)