Rajshahi division is now one of the country's leading producers of rohu, catla and other carp. Every day from afternoon to dawn, more than 500 trucks carry live fish from its ponds to Dhaka, Chattogram, Barishal, Sylhet, Mymensingh and other districts. People in the trade put the region's fish sales at more than Tk 20 crore a day.
According to the Department of Fisheries, the division's eight districts have 449,653 ponds farmed by 165,706 fish farmers, producing 596,467 tonnes of fish a year. About 150,000 tonnes go to other parts of the country after local demand is met, and some fish are exported. Fish farming and trading employ about 300,000 people.
Fisheries officials said sending fresh fish from Rajshahi began about 24 years ago and now reaches at least 25 districts daily. Each truck carries at least 700 to 800 kg. Delivering the fish alive keeps both quality and price up. Natore and Naogaon lead the division in output and trade; besides rohu, catla, mrigal and silver carp, farmers raise pabda, tengra and shing.
Many farmers who lost money on crops have dug ponds on their land, since fish pay better than other crops. Golam Saklain of Durgapur is one example. In 1994, while studying chemistry at Rajshahi University, he started with a two-bigha pond and Tk 7,000 and made Tk 6,000 profit on his first crop. He now farms about 1,000 bighas of leased ponds, employs 152 people and sends about 20 trucks of fish to Dhaka every day.
'I decided to farm fish while I was still at university,' Golam Saklain said. 'Nobody in my family wanted me to go into it.'
Output is rising, but farmers face pressure too: feed prices have gone up while fish prices have not kept pace, cutting profits, and transport costs are climbing, farmers said. Feed and transport costs now largely decide whether Rajshahi's fish farms make money. The report was filed by Bangla Tribune's Rajshahi correspondent Dulal Abdullah.
Photo: Fish market at Naga Bazar, Bagmara, Rajshahi, NagaBazarRajshahi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Bangla Tribune
Comments
(0)