RAJSHAHI, Oct 7, 2020 (BSS) – Fish farmers are trying to recoup their financial losses caused by the novel coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic situation as trading began after the lockdown in the region.
According to the sources concerned, the farmers could not sell their fishes because of abnormal declining price and scope reduction of supplying fishes to Dhaka due to the lockdown.
Shahidul Islam, a commercial fish farmer of Bagdhani village under Paba Upazila, said fish selling has started in full swing after lifting the lockdown for the last couple of months. Despite low prices to some extent fish selling is going on successfully at present.
He said 140 fish-laden trucks are going to Dhaka every day. Fish trading valued at around Taka 1,700 crore happened during the normal time each year on an average.
Islam, however, blamed a sudden death of fish in the ponds due to shortages of Oxygen there.
Around 600 metric tonnes of fish worth around Taka 12 crore died early last month in various ponds of the city and surrounding upazilas due to excessive day-temperature and shortages of Oxygen in those ponds affecting many fish farmers badly.
Shahidul Islam has 15 ponds. Though the fish in five of his ponds died due to oxygen shortage, he has sold fish worth Taka 30 lakh after the withdrawal of the lockdown. He is going to sell fish worth several crores of taka within a few days.
Sadiqul Islam, another farmer of Naohata village, said he is selling eight to ten trucks of fish after lifting the lockdown every month. Selling price is yet to be normalized due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
He said that the prices of fish have declined by Taka 40 to 50 per kg. However, he expects the prices to increase soon as their fish are now being supplied to Dhaka.
During the lockdown, which was enforced on March 26 and continued till May 31, the supply of fish to Dhaka was almost stopped. Besides, the selling prices of fish fell sharply.
Even though the prices are still low, fish trading has started in full swing like before.
According to sources, for the last one week a huge supply of fish has been noticed in all city markets. Especially on the weekends, the city fish markets including the wholesale fish markets at New Market, Naodapara, Rajshahi Court and Shaheb Bazaar experienced a huge supply of local varieties of fishes.
Moreover, there was also a huge supply of Hilsa, Rup Chanda and other sea-fish.
As a result of supply of so much fish in the markets, the price of all varieties of fish also dropped substantially.
Anisur Rahman, a fish farmer at Sripur village in Bagmara upazila, said he sold fish worth Tk10 lakh after the lockdown was withdrawn. He has more fish in his ponds. He will sell them when the market situation becomes normal like before.
District Fisheries Officer Alok Kumar Shaha said there are 50,000 ponds on 13,000 hectares of land producing around 81,000 tonnes of fishes each year in the district. Of those, 85 percent are carp fishes.
In terms of carp fish production, Rajshahi retained the top position for the last couple of years. After meeting up the local demands, around 140 trucks of live fishes are being supplied to Dhaka every day on an average. Each of the trucks carries 700 to 800 kilograms of fish.
“We have around 17,000 fish farmers in the district and about nine lakh people are involved in fish farming, production, transportation and trading,” he said adding that the extent of yearly fish trading may be around Taka 1,620 crore.