Explain the government policies for the development of the fishing industry?
Answers
generate additional employment opportunities in fisheries and ancillary industries to help alleviate poverty;
increase fish production and improve nutritional levels;
improve the socio-economic conditions of the fishermen, fish farmers and other people engaged in the fishery sub-sector;
increase export earnings from shrimps, fish and fish products;
improve environmental conditions;
improve the biological and institutional management mechanisms for the judicious use of fisheries' resources;
strengthen research, extension, management and co-ordination in order to transfer technology and encourage production activities in the private sector, and to ensure sustainable development of resources of the vast floodplains.
Explanation:
3.1 Plans envisioned by the government
The government's avowed macro-economic policies and strategy of development greatly influence the growth of a particular sector or sub-sector. The Fifth Five-Year Plan (FFYP) stated that the major thrust for fisheries development will be culture and capture fisheries, promotion of rice-fish farming system in the vast floodplains and conservation and management along with institutional and man-power development for equitable distribution of benefits from common property water resources through research on social engineering.
The major objectives for the development of the fishery's sub-sector during the fifth plan-period (1997-2002) were to:
generate additional employment opportunities in fisheries and ancillary industries to help alleviate poverty;
increase fish production and improve nutritional levels;
improve the socio-economic conditions of the fishermen, fish farmers and other people engaged in the fishery sub-sector;
increase export earnings from shrimps, fish and fish products;
improve environmental conditions;
improve the biological and institutional management mechanisms for the judicious use of fisheries' resources;
strengthen research, extension, management and co-ordination in order to transfer technology and encourage production activities in the private sector, and to ensure sustainable development of resources of the vast floodplains.
3.2 Major programme areas for government during FFYP period
3.2.1 Open-water capture fisheries
A area of 2.8 million ha of fish habitat in the floodplains remains an unutilized resource for fish-production. In order to increase production from open-water fisheries, programmes will have to be instigated to:
conserve resources through rigorous implementation of the Fish Acts and motivation of fishermen;
establish fish sanctuaries;
increase production by massive stockings of fast-growing carp fingerlings in natural depressions and floodplains;
develop fish culture in paddy fields through protective measures against adverse effects of flood control, drainage and irrigation projects, roads and highways projects, townships and housing projects.
To offset a recent trend in the decline of stocks in open waters, efforts were made to augment these stocks through releases of fish fries into the flood plains. But the programmes did not yield good results. Appropriate procedures and management techniques will have to be put in place to ensure accountability and transparency in the execution of programmes of the five-year-plan for fisheries in open waters.
3.2.2 Closed-water culture fisheries
Bangladesh has over 1.3 million ponds (this figure may be too low) covering an estimated area of 147 000 ha, some 6 000 ha of ox-bow lakes and over 130 000 ha of shrimp farms. Currently, the average production in fresh water ponds is 1.4 t/ha, and that of shrimp farms in brackish waters is only 160 kg/ha. Programmes will be designed to bring all of the 1.3 million ponds under extension programmes of the DOF, BFDC, FRI and NGOs during the five-year-plan period.
3.2.3 Aquaculture in brackish water
An estimated 0.143 million ha of coastal land is under shrimp farming in brackish waters.