6.1 Progress
6.2 Constraints
6.3 Potentials
Significant progress in aquaculture during the last 10 years has been achieved. Production has increased from 117,000 mt in 1983-84 to 264,190 after a ten-year period, accounting for a 126 percent increase. As against this, the yield from inland open-water fisheries increased by only 21.5 percent and marine fisheries by 35.2 percent during the period. Pen culture technology on a limited scale has been introduced.
In the brackishwater aquaculture sector, the culture area has increased from 51,812 ha in 1983-84 (DOF 1986) to 125,000 ha (DOF, 1993-94; Karim and Aftabbuzzaman, 1995) with the concurrent increase in the production from 8,219 mt to 39,447 mt. Some private entrepreneurs have demonstrated through semi-intensive or intensive culture high production rates up to 5 mt/ha/crop in 4 months as against the country’s average production of about 200 kg/ha.
In the field of fish hatchery technology substantial breakthrough has been brought about. From over 90 percent dependence on wild sources for carp hatching or fry, the country now produces 93 percent of the total hatchlings used in the country. Hatchery techniques for several non-carp species have also been adapted and the technologies extended at field level with varying degrees of success. Shrimp hatchery technology has also been introduced, although over 93 percent of the shrimp fry used is of wild origin.
The increase in export both in volume and value of the shrimp from the 1983-84 level (8,818 mt and Tk 1,555 million) to that in 1993-94 (26,277 mt and Tk. 10,457 million) is almost entirely the contribution of the cultured shrimp.
The constraints that affect the expansion of and improvements in aquaculture are due to the following:
Also lacking are systematic efforts to inventory the culturable resources and assess their development needs. Government efforts to organise the assetless or unemployed rural youth or floating fisherpersons of the community into viable farming groups are likewise rather limited. Non-availability of institutional credit at the grassroot level farmers remains an unresolved problem. Facilities for producing large size fingerling of appropriate species-mix at the union level to make this essential production inputs easily accessible to the village level aquafarmers are yet to be established.
In the case of the shrimp sector, the difficulty in obtaining all the required stocking materials at the beginning of the culture season is a formidable problem that does not allow any planned culture system. The lack of an adequate domestic source of fishmeal hinders the development of appropriate feed industries for shrimp and fish. The recent spread of WSV disease has become a great concern to the shrimp farmers. Still on shrimp farming, unplanned developments of both Bagda and Galda farms have given rise to water management problems. Not having any supply and drainage network in most of the Galda farming areas, farms are exposed to severe environmental hazards and diseases. Another problem, long identified but yet unsolved, is lack of a database in all aspects of fisheries.
The deterioration of open water fisheries due to resource-use conflicts such as large-scale flood control programmes, has made it necessary to rapidly expand aquaculture in order to compensate and offset losses of natural fisheries. The expansion of aquaculture development, integrated with agricultural production in all possible environments, can go a long way towards rural socio-economic upliftment. Such development efforts should most desirably be on community-based approach to ensure people participation in local development planning and implementation.
The Union Parishad, as the grassroot level administration, should be oriented towards playing a larger and effective role in village-level aquaculture development and extension activities. This would ensure full utilisation of the neglected local resources, including human resources, and the conservation of fish and fish habitats. Aquaculture development, properly planned and implemented, could make substantial contributions to food security in rural Bangladesh. Government efforts, if in harmony with those of NGOs, can accelerate national development, alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life in rural Bangladesh.
