The government has taken an initiative to set up new shrimp hatcheries in the country in the wake of the farmers' demand for sufficient supply of healthy and virus-free shrimp fry, officials said.
Local shrimp farmers are facing acute shortage in shrimp fry supply, especially in the coastal regions of the country, for a notable time and the crises have become severe in the last couple of years, both officials and shrimp growers said.
The existing hatcheries, with a neglible output capacity, cannot not produce enough shrimp fries to meet the demand of the shrimp farming sector, farmers and shrimp business insiders said.
They said, at present, the country's shrimp fry demand is 7.0 billion and currently, there are only two hatcheries in the country which are in operation for artificial shrimp fry production - one is located in southeastern district of Cox's Bazar and the other in southwestern Khulna district.
Both are state-owned hatcheries and only can provide 0.3 billion fries while the total shrimp fry demand is 7.0 billion, according to the local fisheries office.
The gap between shrimp fry supply and demand, especially, absence of adequately healthy and virus-free fries supply, are posing threat to the shrimp sector, which is considered as 'white gold' in Bangladesh because of its prospect to earn huge foreign currency, officials and farmers said.
Saiful Islam, a fish farmer of southwestern Satkhira district, told the FE that earlier they had to depend on nearby rivers, other water bodies and natural sources of the coastal areas for gathering shrimp fries and now, the shrimp farmers have to depend fully on import and production from local hatchery for getting supply of the fries.
"We could collect fries from nearby rivers and other water sources of the coastal areas, but currently farmers depend fully on import and production from local hatchery for shrimp fries," he said.
"Also there is almost no reliable local and government sources for shrimp fry supply and almost no bank loans for helping the farmers to buy healthy and virus-free fires. Furthermore, there is no assurance for the farmers to get certified and virus-free healthy fries," they said.
As a result, the farmers are often forced to buy unhealthy and virus-infected fries that is directly impacting the shrimp productrion, alleged farmers.
Ram Krishna Joardar, a Shatkhira shrimp farmer, told the FE that lapses in the monitoring by the government, supply of virus-infected and unhealthy fries from India through the border areas in Shatkhira, are big problems. He said this substandard fries die two to three months after getting released into shrimp enclosures (gher).
Both Saiful and Joardar pointed that at present shrimp production has decloned to halve because of supply in the market of the unhealthy fries who don't grow bigger in size even after they are fed necessary food and fertilizer.
Contacted, Satkhira district fisheries officer Md Moshiur Rahman said the government recently gave the nod to set up a private hatchery while another hatchery is being set up by the government following approval recently.
Half of the total local demand of shrimp fries would be met once the two new hatcheries are completed go into operation, he said. "After completion, we could get supply of half of the total local demand," he said.
Farmers often buy Indian fries which are cheaper in prices but inferior to the local ones in quality. "We have found those (Indian) fries unhealthy and prone to get affected with virus. We regularly urge farmers not to buy those, but some of them buy those because of the low price," he further said.
Teams from fisheries offices regularly monitor and conduct drives in the local markets to prevent entry of low quality and unhealthy shrimp fries in markets from border areas, he mentioned.
Even after the two hatcheries go into operation, supplying the remaining half of the total local shrimp fry demand will be a big challenge, he said. Other issues and challenges faced by the farmers are increased cost of fertiliser and getting loans from banks and other government institutions and lending wings, he noted.
All these issues must be addressed to fully meet the local demands, added Joardar.
Pavel Partha, an independent researcher who also works for an international non-government development organisation (INGO) in that region, said such sorry state of shrimp farming is taking its toll on both the shrimp growers and farming.
Shrimp farmers, especially small and marginal ones, who don't have the ability to cope with the present situation, are giving up their profession and switching to other professions for their livelihood, he said.
Farmers in the area said have failed to make profit from shrimp farming as it has become a losing profession and they have switched to other profession for their livelyhood.
Partha said even for livelihood, a notable number of the shrimp farmers have takenm up some professions which is much harder than shrimp custure.
"We conducted a research in Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira which showed about 2,500 men and women go to different brick fields in and around Shyamnagar every day and work there as day labourer for livelihood," he stated.
Some farmers, who earlier worked at shrimp enclosures, now working at croplands as peasants and other professions, he added.
The shrimp growers expressed their dissatisfaction over meagre support they are getting from local fisheries offices which are very insignificant to deal with the crisis they are facing.
Fisheries officer Moshiur Rahman, however, said that they sat with officials of local banks recently and discussed the issues with them. He said they had also placed a set of proposals to them for mitigating the sufferings of the shrimp growers.
"The proposals include increasing the amount of shrimp farmers' loans out of the total 10 per cent earmarked for fish farmers and raising the limit of the amount to be given them as loan," he said.
"Besides, we regularly monitor local famers and provide necessary suggestion for them," he added.
