October 30, 2019

Study projects Bangladesh aquaculture production to hit 6,986 million tonnes by 2030

Rising aquaculture investment and productivity are contributing factors to the estimated 152% larger aquaculture production compared to 2015, reported Dhaka Tribune.

The findings were released in The Making of Blue Revolution in Bangladesh: Enablers, Impacts and the Path Ahead for Aquaculture study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The study was conducted by Shahidur Rashid, IFPRI Director for South Asia and Xiaobo Zhang, an IFPRI senior fellow and economics professor at Peking University of China.

The study found that Bangladesh's growing aquaculture industry has rapidly increased production of fish products, decreased prices and continuously meets increasing demand for fish products domestically.

This is credited to fish farmers utilising hatchery-produced seed fish, investing in floating formulated feed, increased use of chemicals, acquiring more labour, and investment in quasi-fixed capital for farm expansion.

The country could see a positive surge in aquaculture production by as much as 120% in 2030, with a 69% increase in per capita consumption.

Shahidur Rashid said poor households in Bangladesh can profit from reduced farmed fish farmers, as long as there are the right targeted investments – in relation to the study's findings of aquaculture helping two million Bangladeshis escape poverty between 2000 to 2010.

Xiaobo Zhang said the country can expect a twelve-fold increase if Bangladesh were to expand its aquaculture production to half of the country's under-utilised pond areas.

-  Dhaka Tribune