October 3, 2006

USAID sees huge potential in Bangladesh's shrimp sector

The USAID is keen to support Bangladesh shrimp development to reduce poverty in saline-prone areas, McDonald C Homer, team leader of the organisation's private sector unit, said Thursday (Sep 28).

Homer was speaking at a workshop by the WorldFish Centre, a USAID-funded NGO, to get feedback from the shrimp sector for the Shrimp Quality Support Project (SQSP).

The project, originally slated to end September, would be extended as the USAID has already shown interest in financing the project, sources said.

The USAID has provided around US$650,000 this year to create awareness and motivate farmers to grow virus-free quality shrimp in environmentally conducive ponds, WorldFish sources said.

WorldFish has helped to breed 350 million virus-free larvae this year and supplied 3.5 million of them to its network of farmers, who got significantly higher yields than that done through traditional methods. 

Homer said Bangladesh was the country with the most potential to produce both organic and other shrimps.

What the industry needs now is the involvement of more partners to boost production in an affordable way, he said. He also urged private banks to fund more aquaculture projects.

Despite having to cope with virus infections, Bangladesh's shrimp sector managed to export 60,000 tonnes of shrimps during the last fiscal. With the right use of technology, there is potential to double production in the next couple of years, experts said.

Most of the 50,000 farmers in the region still use the traditional, low yield method which is cheaper instead of the higher-yielding but more expensive method. Also, lack of information also kept them on the old ways, WorldFish said.