Fish farmers in Tarash are building rafts from plastic drums and using them to feed the fish in their ponds. Drum rafts are steadily replacing dinghy boats.

At a pond beside the Aranggail village road, a fish farmer was seen sitting on a drum raft feeding his fish. The farmer, Nasir Uddin, said the wood of a dinghy rots within one to two years. A drum raft is a very easy and durable way to farm fish in a pond, and it lasts a long time. "Now most fish farmers, like me, use drum rafts in their ponds," he said.

The rafts are made by fixing a bamboo platform on top of four empty plastic drums. The raft is then floated on the pond and pulled along by a nylon rope while the fish are fed, much as a boat is towed by a rope. Upazila fisheries officer Mosgul Azad said drum rafts are more economical for fish farmers than dinghy boats.

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