Some fish farmers in Bangladesh complain that they receive no specific advice from the government on farming fish or using medicines.

They decide on the use and doses of various chemicals, even antibiotics, on the advice of feed-producing companies. On many farms, poultry droppings and waste are still used as fish feed.

Researchers warn that fish produced this way may harm human health. But how widespread is the concern over farmed fish, and how much government monitoring is there?

At a fish market in Mirpur, Dhaka, sellers sat with rui, catla, mrigel, koi, pangas and other fish of all sizes, some of them river fish and some farmed, according to the sellers.

Runa Begum buys fish at this market regularly. She said she buys nothing but river fish. Asked why, she said: "I don't get the taste in farmed fish that I get in river fish. Farmed fish always has a sort of smell, rather like grass."

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.