A common assumption that it is a cold-region fish collapses: sturgeon raised in a Hai Phong river

In Hop Tien commune (xa Hop Tien, former Nam Sach district of the former Hai Duong province) in Hai Phong city, northern Vietnam, about 15 farmers are raising sturgeon using cages in the Kinh Thay river. According to reporting distributed by Dan Viet on July 27, 2026 from an article in the local paper Bao Hai Phong, the seed stock is brought from Sa Pa in Lao Cai province, the most suitable period is said to be October to the following March, and they peer into the cages at night with underwater cameras. In a lowland river with neither elevation nor spring water, a cold-water fish is circulating as a commodity. For Japanese seafood buyers and inland-water aquaculture operators, it is word that the premise of "sturgeon = caviar = cold region" is beginning to be removed by the growing-region side itself.

15 households run it by staggering the growing cycle—the Kinh Thay river's sturgeon

Hop Tien commune is an administrative district formed by the July 2025 merger of the former Nam Hung, Nam Thanh and Hop Tien communes, with cage farming clustered along the Kinh Thay river. The paper cites Tran Van Duong as a front-runner, who went all the way to Lao Cai to see the technique before deciding to stock. As a handler of more than three years, Vu Duc Cong is cited, running 3–5 cages per cycle. Sturgeon acclimatization began locally in 2022.

The design leans into the season. If raising them in Hai Phong, the most suitable is October to the following March, Duong says. This fish eats only at night and takes only sinking feed. Because abnormalities occur in the hours out of sight, farmers put in underwater cameras to check inside the cages. Seed stock is VND 80,000–90,000 per fish, 20–30% higher than the fry of conventional species. Shipment centers on 2.5–3 kilos per fish, with some households taking them to 4–6 kilos. Yield per cage is roughly 1.8–2 tonnes in about a year, the growing-region price is VND 200,000–230,000 per kilo, and profit reaches VND 80 million–100 million per cage, 30–35% more than conventional species raised in the same river, the paper reports.

That said, it is not farming only in winter. The paper writes that Hop Tien commune's farmers can now raise them year-round, not just in the winter-spring crop. Matching the market, they spread the growing cycle and adjust shipment months in a two-tier setup—six months for 500-gram-class seed stock, three months for 1-kilo-class. That the best period is in winter and that supply is limited to winter are separate matters.

Those conventional species are the extra-chewy carp (ca chep gion) and grass carp (tram gion) long made in this river. The brand is stable but the unit price does not grow. Sturgeon sits as a high-unit-price separate slot slipped in beside the main business.

Four years from acclimatization in 2022—the route by which a lowland river became a growing region

Vietnam's cold-water fish farming is originally an industry of the northern mountains and the Thai Nguyen highlands. According to Tap chi Thuy san Viet Nam (the Vietnam fisheries journal), production grew from 95 tonnes in 2007 to 450 tonnes in 2010, 1,585 tonnes in 2015, 3,720 tonnes in 2020, and over 4,668 tonnes in 2023. The journal writes this as "average annual production growth of 49.13% from 2007 to 2023." However, this 49.13% is quoted as in the original; recalculated as compound growth from the production figures above, it comes to only around 28% a year. It is natural to read it as a simple average of the year-on-year change rates, and copying it into a business plan as a compound growth rate would miss the outlook by a wide margin. Cold-water fish farming has spread to 21 provinces, and the journal states that Vietnam ranks among the world's top 10 countries in sturgeon production.

The center is Lao Cai province. Nhan Dan (May 14, 2026) reports that there are 1,197 farming facilities in Sa Pa, Bat Xat, Bac Ha, Ngu Chi Son, Tu Le and elsewhere, with 2025 production of 950 tonnes, 374 tonnes in Q1 2026 alone, and a full-year outlook of 1,170 tonnes. There are 8 seed-stock facilities for cold-water fish (salmon and sturgeon), but against a design capacity of about 6.47 million fish a year, actual production stays at about 3 million. Behind Hop Tien's farmers bringing seed stock from Sa Pa is this concentration in one place. The highland-side picture of the growing region is The Krong No River sturgeon farming area and like it, it is a capital-investment model that depends on spring water and swift currents.

What is new is that this fish was carried not into newly built facilities but onto existing freshwater cage infrastructure. Hop Tien has about 1,700 cages across 81 households, and in western Hai Phong more than 600 households with over 8,000 cages produce 30,000 tonnes a year, the agriculture and environment paper reports. The 15 households that took up sturgeon are less than 20% of those 81. Rather than adding facilities, it is closer to reality to read this as swapping out the contents within an existing frame.

490,000 to 620,000 yen per cage: farmgate prices are higher than Japan imagines

Converting the figures into yen. The conversion uses roughly 1 yen = 162 dong as of July 2026.

What stands out is the price reversal. As Cafef reported on 22 August 2025, officially imported Chinese fish fell to about 100,000 dong, Lai Chau fish to about 120,000 dong, and Lao Cai fish to about 130,000 dong even at the largest size, a sharp drop from the earlier 170,000–240,000 dong. In the same period, fish from the Hai Phong lowlands sell at 200,000–230,000 dong. The delta newcomer fetches more than the highland heartland.

The most natural explanation is distance. Right on the doorstep of the consuming markets of Hanoi and Hai Phong, the fish can be shipped live. Put the other way, this premium does not carry over into exports.

A fish that earns 30% more is at the same time being pushed down by Chinese imports

That Mr. Con keeps himself to 3–5 cages per cycle reflects his recognition that this is a fish demanding heavy investment and labor. The same paper writes, as the area's own challenges, that competition with Chinese imports has pushed prices down, and that scaling up would require production linkages (liên kết) to secure an outlet. The gist is that the stage where whatever you make simply sells is over.

The highland side is even tougher. Responding to Cafef's reporting, the deputy head of the relevant division at the Lao Cai provincial Department of Agriculture and Environment explains that production costs are heavy because the province's farmers cannot produce their own fingerlings or feed and their techniques are dated. Producers tell it differently: a farmer at Ngoi Chi Son says that even after two and a half to three years to harvest, 130,000 dong per kg does not turn a profit. The province's customs officer states clearly that there have been no smuggling cases, which suggests a picture in which it is duty-free official imports, not illegal inflows, that are pushing prices down. From the start of 2025 through August, four official import permits covering 560 tonnes were issued.

The conventional side has no room to spare either. At a density where more than 8,000 cages line the same river, raising more of the same fish will not bring unit prices back. Against that, the choice of the 15 households that added one high-priced fish looks less like rashness than a cash-flow calculation.

Three points Japanese aquaculture and procurement should read

A caviar premise does not fit the timeline

Miyazaki Prefecture received sturgeon from a national research institute and brought them to the Kobayashi branch of the prefectural fisheries experiment station in 1983. From there it built up fingerling-production techniques and the prefecture's own caviar-making technology, and sales of 'Miyazaki caviar' began in the winter of fiscal 2013. The design took 30 years to reach the roe. By contrast, the 15 Hop Tien households do not take roe. The 2.5–3 kg meat fish is recovered as such in three to six months. Even for the same species, the velocity of invested capital is utterly different. When copying Vietnam's figures onto your own profit-and-loss table, do not mix the metrics of a caviar business with those of a meat business.

The idea of adding one high-unit-price fish to existing facilities

The biggest invention in this case is not the fish but the reuse of facilities. Without building a new farm, they simply added one high-unit-price species to existing cages, workers, and water area. They further use fingerlings of two sizes, around 500 grams and around 1 kilogram, and concentrate shipments in the months with demand. Japan's inland aquaculture, too, has much equipment still filled with low-unit-price items. Whether sturgeon can be introduced is a matter of river law and fishing rights, but the structure of 'inserting one high-unit-price item into existing facilities and adjusting the shipping month by fingerling size' can be transferred to areas that use lakes and reservoirs. It also echoes the picture of a dam reservoir in Nghe An turning into an inland-water sourcing hidden gem.

As a producing area, its strength is still at the observation stage rather than negotiation

Seen through a procurement lens, a scale of 15 households and a few dozen cages does not reach the level of steady supply to Japan. Though it has gone year-round, the volume is still small. This is not a partner to load a container with right now, but one to watch over the next two or three years to see how far the number of households grows and whether outlet contracts attach. On top of that, fingerlings depend on Lao Cai, and the province's eight facilities fall short of even half their design capacity. The structure in which fingerlings cap the industry giant mottled eel farming that keeps relying on the sea for juveniles is the same. If the Japanese side partners up, entering on the fingerling and feed side works better than buying.

If the 'cold-water fish' category dissolves, how does the aquaculture map shift?

Vietnam's statistics and policy have treated 'cold-water fish' (cá nước lạnh) as a highland industry. The figure of 21 provinces also assumes mountains and highlands. If the lowland-river method spreads, the design of origin certification and standards will fail to keep pace with reality. In marine aquaculture there is a move to tie a national standard to insurance and financing (the first national standard for marine aquaculture), whereas the new inland-water method still sits outside the system.

The more domestic prices are pushed down by Chinese imports, the more producers seek outlets abroad. But the live-fish advantage vanishes the moment the fish crosses a border, so the winning path lies with processed goods and caviar. If a Japanese trading company builds a connection, the order would be primary processed goods such as smoked product or fillets rather than fresh meat, or highland caviar.

Conditions to confirm before negotiating

The CITES side is easy to overlook. Sturgeons are covered regardless of species, and even farmed individuals require a permit from the exporting country's authority. Caviar further carries facility registration and non-reusable labels under Resolution 12.7. What the Fisheries Agency operates is a registration system for facilities exporting or re-exporting from Japan, so what to verify for imports is whether the Vietnamese side is registered.

Summary

What the 15 households in Hai Phong showed is the fact that sturgeon is no longer a highland monopoly, and the reality that, as a producing area, it is still small. The practical gain for the Japanese side lies less in hunting for import prospects than in stealing the technique of reshuffling the item mix of existing facilities.

If there is a move, the steps are three. Draw up the operating calendar of your own ponds and cages and identify the slots filled with low-unit-price items. Ask trading companies that handle Vietnamese sturgeon about supply capacity not for fresh fish but for primary processed goods and caviar, and at that point confirm whether facilities are registered. And track Lao Cai's fingerling situation. As long as actual output stays at half of design capacity, this area's growth speed is set by fingerlings. Rather than waiting for expansion, pinning down where the bottleneck sits first makes negotiations faster.

References: Dân Việt／Nhân Dân／Tạp chí Thủy sản Việt Nam／CafeF／Nông nghiệp và Môi trường／Fisheries Agency／JETRO／Miyazaki Prefecture