Bangladesh is a land of rivers, and fish is one of its main sources of income. The country produced 50 lakh tonnes of fish in the 2023-24 fiscal year. In 2024-25 it exported 91,000 tonnes of fish and fish products worth about Tk 5,145 crore, nearly Tk 1,000 crore more than the year before. But fishers and fisheries scientists say hilsa production is falling and the average size of the fish is shrinking.

According to the Fisheries and Livestock Division, Bangladesh is one of the world's top three producers of freshwater and farmed fish. It produces 13.22 lakh tonnes of freshwater fish, 11.7 per cent of the world total, up from 11 per cent in the previous report.

Department of Fisheries data for 2025 show that the fisheries sector directly or indirectly supports the livelihoods of more than two crore people, including 14 lakh women, or 12 per cent of the population. Per capita fish consumption was 67 grams a day in 2023-24.

Bangladesh takes about 12.53 per cent of its annual fish output, roughly 6.29 lakh tonnes, from marine sources, according to the Agriculture Information Service (AIS). The remaining 87.47 per cent comes from inland open and closed water bodies and aquaculture.

AIS also said that in 2023-24 Bangladesh exported 71,477 tonnes of fish and fish products and earned Tk 4,376 crore, against 91,000 tonnes worth about Tk 5,145 crore in 2024-25.

Fish is exported to 52 countries, including the UK, China, India, France, the United States, Japan, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Exports include shrimp, rui, catla, mrigal, crab, eel (kuchia), pangas, pabda, tilapia, shol, koi, shing, magur and various marine species. A recent report on world fisheries by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reflected the same figures. Bangladesh is now second in the world in inland open-water capture and fifth in tilapia production.

Bangladesh is number one in the world for hilsa, producing about 70 to 80 per cent of the global total. Yet for several years hilsa has sold at high prices even in the peak season. Fishers and scientists point to many threats: shrinking migration routes, the killing of fry, less food for the fish, climate change, river pollution, loss of navigability and the fish not being allowed to complete their life cycle.

Some researchers say there is no single cause: many factors together have produced the downward trend. Experts recommend more research, proper enforcement of the law, updating the list of fishers and paying incentives, protecting breeding grounds, focusing on artificial breeding, and joint initiatives with India and Myanmar.

Researchers say hilsa mature within one to two years. A jatka (juvenile) that survives a year reaches up to 11.81 inches; one that lives five to seven years can exceed 22 inches.

Hilsa researcher Anisur Rahman, a former director of the fisheries research institute, said: "Over the past two years it is not only overall production that has fallen; the number of large hilsa has fallen. At one time the average hilsa weighed 400 to 450 grams. Now it is coming down to 300 to 350 grams."

Research by the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) found that the average length of hilsa caught fell to 13.39 inches in 2025-26, from 14.65 inches in 2022-23. The smallest fish on average are caught in Rajshahi district, at 11.42 inches, and the largest in Cox's Bazar, at 15.16 inches.

The research report says: "The hilsa's diet includes 27 species of plant plankton and 12 species of animal plankton. The amount of this plankton in the Meghna river has fallen by 68 per cent, mainly because of river pollution." The study was carried out by BFRI chief scientific officer Mohammad Ashraful Alam, who said: "Plankton, the food hilsa need, is declining alarmingly in the Padma and Meghna estuaries. This is affecting the size of the fish. Hilsa are not growing quickly, and they are caught in fishers' nets before they grow large."

Kishore Kumar Sarkar, a teacher at the College of Fisheries and Life Sciences of Shanghai Ocean University in China, gives another reason. "Average temperatures have risen over the past few decades with climate change. Many studies show this has a major effect on the size and shape of fish. The effect should be pronounced on highly sensitive migratory fish that move between rivers and the sea to complete their life cycle," he said.

On top of this, navigability upstream of the Bay of Bengal has fallen. In particular, the number of submerged shoals has risen sharply on the migration channels hilsa use to enter rivers from the sea and return, seriously disrupting their movement and their normal life cycle.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.