The Mekong Delta, long renowned as the “rice bowl of Vietnam”, is now also home to a multi-billion-dollar shrimp industry and burgeoning numbers of farmers are building fortunes from the small crustaceans. The shrimp bonanza began in the 1990s when rising sea-levels seeped saltwater into the Mekong Delta. When saltwater started creeping into his rice fields — he saw an opportunity and started harvesting shrimp.

Rice to riches: Vietnam’s farmer gamble of shrimp. (2017, August 10). The Manila Times, p. B4.