August 25, 2010

Indonesian government urged to realise shrimp pond programme

Indonesia's government has been urged to realise its shrimp pond revitalisation programme so as to increase shrimp production.

"The government must revitalise the programme soon," Secretary General of the People's Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara), Riza Damani said. He said that in Lampung there were at least 25,000 hectares of shrimp ponds which should be revitalised soon because their production at present was low.

The revitalisation was expected to increase farmers' production.

The government was also called on to take stern actions against companies which took over traditional ponds and violated the environment regulations.

Earlier, Maritime and Fisheries Affairs Minister Fadel Muhammad said his ministry would focus on revitalising shrimp ponds to increase shrimp production at home.

"Increasing domestic shrimp production is more important than importing the product to meet the need at home," the minister said.

After all, there were several risks that could harm ponds at home if shrimp was imported. If shrimp imports are contaminated with virus it had the potentials to contaminate production at home, the minister said.

Therefore, the minister said he hoped that banks would help provide funding for the revitalisation of shrimp ponds at home so that production could be boosted.

Initially, the government has set a shrimp production target in 2010 at 400,000 tonnes. However, due to a disease which has infected shrimps, the government revised down its production target to 350,000 tonnes.

The disease is still spreading to a number of shrimp production centres in Lampung, Sumatra, East Java and South Sulawesi. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Maritime and Fisheries will build a special shrimp and fish hospital in Semarang, Central Java and Banten province at the end of 2010.