Cost Monitoring for Clam Raising Farmers in the Northern Area of Vietnam

Clam farming in the coastal provinces of Vietnam has notably developed since the last decade. It generated high income, improve socio-economic development for many local communities. However, many clam raising farms were facing difficulties of farm management, disease control, markets and systems of quality control. This research aimed to study about the real situation of cost monitoring in the clam raising farms in the Northern area of Vietnam and suggested some recommendation to promote the benefits for farmers. The paper is based on the semi-structure, standard questionnaires and PRA method to collect data from112 clam raising farms in two coastal provinces (Nam Dinh and Thai Binh) in the Northern area of Vietnam in 2014. The findings showed that clam raising provided farmers a chance of getting high income parallel with high risk. There were 32.14% surveyed farms that got profit; 32.14% of them met the break-even, and 35.72% was lost. The study has found out four key factors affecting farms’ economic performance and efficiency. The first factor that impacted on the farms’ outcome was the low capacity of farm cost control, thus the cost for clam raising was very high at 8,142 to 9,190 USD per ha. The second was the farmers’ experience, skill, technique and ability to control risk. The third was the low, unstable market and unsuitable market. Final factor was the area and location of clam raising. Despite these difficulties, 57.14% surveyed farms still intended to expand their production; 25% of them would continue; and only 17.86% would stop or changed to other activities. In order to promote the benefits for clam raising farmers, cost control should be paid more attention, improvement of the farmers’ capacity to control cost was necessary, and market should be regarded.