Cost monitoring to promote the value added for clam raising farmers in the Northern area of Vietnam

Clam farming in 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 are facing difficulties of farm management, disease control, markets and systems of quality control. This research aims to study about the real situation of cost monitoring in the clam raising farms in the Northern area of Vietnam and suggest some recommendation for apply a suitable model for cost monitoring to promote the value added for farmers. The paper based on the semi-structure, standard questionnaires and PRA method to collect data from 89 clam raising farms in two coastal provinces (Nam Dinh and Thai Binh) in the Northern area of Vietnam in 2014. The findings show that clam raising provides farmers a chance of getting high income parallel with high risk. There were 32.15% surveyed farms got profit, 32.14% of them met the breakeven and 35.71% was lost. The study finds out four key factors affecting farms’ economic performance and efficiency. The first is capacity of farm cost control as the cost for clam raising was very high at 8,142 to 9,190 USD per ha. The second is the farmers’ experience, skill, technique and ability of risk control. The third is low, unstable market price and unsuitable market channel with the dominant of the traders. Final factors is the area and location of clam raising. Despite of these difficulties, 55.14% surveyed farms still want to expand their production, 25% of them will continue, and only 17.86% will stop or change to other activities. In order to promote the value added for clam raising farmers, cost control should be paid more attention, improvement of the farmers’ capacity is necessary, and market should be regarded.