About half of the 2 million hectares of the global shrimp farming area is in the tidal zone and often in what was tropical mangrove forest developed into shrimp ponds. Most of this area is comprised of small extensive farms that average yields of less than 500 kg/ha/year. The area surrounding Cau Mau and other provinces in the Mekong Delta is characterized by more than two hundred thousand hectares of such small farms that occupy from about 1 to 3 hectares each employing the farm owners and providing their families with subsistence income. These yields are relatively small compared to more intensive, often mechanically aerated, shrimp ponds elsewhere in Asia. In Thailand typical average yields of 15 mt/ha/year of shrimp suggests that the clearing of mangrove in the Mekong Delta is both excessive and environmentally destructive. This study examined the potential transition of extensive farms to more productive farming methods that would improve farm income, require less mangrove conversion, and provide an opportunity to increase shrimp production by allocating human and land resource to more efficient and productive farming methods. The results of engineering and financial planning studies showed that existing farms less than 2.8 ha were unable to justify investment in more intensive farm configurations, but that farms over 6 ha with yields of 7 to 15 mt/ha/yr had the potential to amortize investment in construction of more intensive farms, employ farms and workers with more compensation, stabilize sustainable pond maintenance, protect remaining mangrove forest, restore mangrove areas, and reduce the contraction of the Vietnamese coastline caused substantially by pond sedimentation in the extensive pond area.