Received: Feb 27, 2021 / Published: Sep 30, 2022
Freshwater aquaculture has played key roles in the livelihood development of farm households in the Red River Delta through freshwater fish ponds, rice-and-fish, and marine cage culture. A market-driven approach is being addressed more and more in promoting new production. This study aimed to analyze the marketing channels of freshwater aquaculture fish in Hai Duong province. The study was conducted with 151 farm households belonging to three fish production system: Fish system engaging fish production only (FS); animal fish system combining animal and fish production (AF) ; and new garden-pond-animal house system (VAC) in the province. The attained results reveal that fish farmers diversified their marketing strategies to obtain a marketing margin of about 87% of the retail price of the finfish along with their value distribution while the remaining portion of the marketing margins belonged to the intermediary market actors. The cost of the purchased fish commodities accounts for the majority of the total cost for all actors. The cost of dead fish presented the highest proportion of the total marketing cost. A large portion of the marketing costs represented wages, fuel, and the rent of a business place. The marketing margin for the intermediary stakeholders in both the studied channels was 12.7%, in which marketing costs accounted for approximately 5.0%. The results will be used for designing better promotion strategies for freshwater fish production and providing good lessons for small-scale fresh aquaculture development towards livelihood diversification and development in rural areas.