A silent revolution has happened in fish farming during the last couple of years generating employment for around 288,000 people in the district.
The district, besides, has clinched the top position in terms of supplying around 140 to 150 trucks of live fish valued around Tk2 crore to different districts including the capital Dhaka every day.
There are scores of ponds on 13,050 hectares of land producing 84,000 tons of fish every year.
District Fisheries Officer Alok Kumar Shaha said many people are becoming self-reliant through fish farming as Rajshahi is the suitable place for the farming since immemorial time. Paddy and fish farming and cage culture during monsoon has been gaining popularity.
He said Rajshahi is the pioneer in the field of supplying live fish to different parts in the country including the capital Dhaka.
Sadiqul Islam, 54, a commercial fish farmer in Paba upazila, had started fish farming in a small pond in 2007. Now, he has ponds over 180 bighas of land. “Fish farming is a profitable business and the live fish trading is more profitable and lucrative.”
Ershad Ali, 47, another fish farmer of Shilmaria village under Puthiya Upazila, said many more people are entering the fish farming business as it’s very profitable. “Many of the landowners are now being seen digging new ponds to lease out to fish farmers.”
Ershad told BSS that Tk20,000 to Tk30,000 is the present lease value for a pond on one bigha. “Anyone can farm fish with around Tk1.5 lakh to Tk2 lakh easily if one cultivates fish using modern methods.”
Amzad Hossain, a fish farmer of Keshorehat village in Mohanpur upazila, alone produced 30.25 tons of fish worth around Tk44.25 lakh making a net profit of Tk15 lakh in 2019.
Through ensuring quality, he collects eggs from government hatchery and rivers and breeds fish from the eggs by himself. At the initial stage, he got training from the Upazila Fisheries Office in fish farming.
He said several hundreds of new large ponds have been dug for commercial fish cultivation.
Tofazuddin Ahmed, divisional deputy director of the Department of Fisheries, has attained significant success in fish spawn and fish fingerling production which are also surplus than the existing demand.
He said the region has also attained the success of 71,443 tons of surplus fish production in comparison to the existing demands.
The farmers have harvested 476,000 tons of fish from 403,000 hectares of different categories of water-bodies in last fiscal against the demand of 404,000 tons for around 19,200,000 people in the division this year.
Ahmed attributed the success to the adoption of multidimensional development and extension programs including the promotion of modern technologies.
Fish farming is making many people financially solvent along with boosting their social dignity and contributing to meeting the demand for the animal protein of the region besides different other parts of the country.
In order to boost fish production in the country’s internal water-bodies, stock of around 104,000 lakh tons of fish fingerlings has been arranged in different water-bodies at a cost of around Tk15.62 crore benefiting 684,000 lakh fish farmers.
Besides, Beel nursery on 1,370.06 hectares of water-bodies has been installed at a cost of around Tk2.8 crore benefitting 58,984 fish-growers contributing a lot to boosting carp fish in internal water bodies.
