The Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock says most of the 35 actions it took on under the first 180-day programme of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's government have been fully implemented, with the rest at 60 to 80 percent. The figures come from the ministry's progress report sent to the Prime Minister's Office on 16 August.

To carry out the election-manifesto policy of 'jal jar, jala tar' (the water belongs to whoever holds the net), the ministry moved to cancel leases on jalmahals, coastal canals and haors, registered or updated 200 fishers' organisations and compiled a list of 27,969 jalmahals. Food was distributed to every fisher covered by the closed seasons and the 58-day ban on marine fishing, and Kaptai Lake fishers received food aid along with financing for poultry, cattle and goats, vegetable gardens and small businesses.

For safe fish production, more than 300 fish-feed factories were inspected and 250 feed samples tested, with 60 more samples under the National Residue Control Plan; 60 animal-feed mills were inspected and over 300 samples tested. A low-cost feed formula and a vaccine were developed for pangas, the commercially most important farmed fish. Public hatcheries implemented 114 plans for a digital database, 100 farms for koi, shing, pabda and pangas were set up in saline and drought-prone coastal areas, and a study report was prepared on golda and bagda shrimp. Three pilot insurance schemes were launched in fisheries and 3,600 animals were insured in the livestock sector to protect farmers from natural disasters.

In the blue economy, two long-liner tuna vessels were chartered to catch tuna and similar pelagic fish in the deep sea, seven vessels including five deep-sea fishing ships were licensed, Kuakata and Salimpur were declared marine protected areas, and 25 seaweed farming demonstrations, 24 seaweed drying racks and training for 100 growers were delivered. To lift production, 220.24 tonnes of fingerlings were released and 400 beel nurseries and 45 sanctuaries established.

In livestock, 180 million doses of vaccine were supplied against infectious diseases of cattle and poultry, the National Poultry Development Policy 2026 was gazetted, 2.2 million doses of improved-breed semen were supplied, 20,000 goats and sheep and 60,000 poultry birds were distributed among small and marginal farmers, and 483 people were recruited in grades 11-20 against 4,941 vacancies.

Professor Dr Jahangir Alam Khan, former president of the Bangladesh Agricultural Economists Association, said the sector's central aim should be to bring prices down as well as raise output, since higher production alone does not guarantee that fish and meat reach everyone; if needed, feed should be subsidised as farm inputs are. Calling the 180-day programme a positive step that the ministry had completed well, he urged it to hold on to that momentum and to plan, with experienced people, for low-interest credit, better marketing and fair prices for fish farmers and livestock keepers.

From a Protidiner Bangladesh report by Faruk Ahmad Arif. Source: Protidiner Bangladesh