Training of Trainers - Library - Network of Aquaculture Centres in ...

PrefaceIn ASEAN countries, aquaculture is an important activity and several thousands of small farmers are engaged inthis activity to earn their livelihood. Fish being a major animal protein source in ASEAN countries, greaterimportance is attached to ensure good quality safe fish and its products availability to all sections of thepopulation. ASEAN Foundation plays critical role in ensuring development of all its members through cooperation.This project entitled “Strengthening the capacity of small holder ASEAN farmers for competitive and sustainableaquaculture“ has been supported by the foundation to accomplish the ASEAN vision of 2020. The projectobjectives are to improve the competitiveness of ASEAN aquaculture small holders in the domestic, regional andglobal markets, to improve sustainability of their farming systems, to make them adopt responsible farmingpractices and improve their profitability.Five ASEAN countries, namely, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were chosen as therepresentative countries. Based on the interest expressed by each country and the inception workshop that washeld as part of the project activities, following five commodities were chosen:(a) In Cambodia, snakeheads contribute to the food and economy of people immensely and they werecultured in cages and ponds for several decades. In 2005, Cambodia banned the culture of this speciesas farmers were using seeds collected from the wild and fed them with fresh fish caught from wild. n orderto develop better feed management practices and explore the culture of snakeheads using other feedresources, Cambodia chose snakeheads as the commodity for research under the project.(b) Tilapia being the most rapidly growing and widely cultured commodity, Thailand decided to work withfarmers engaged in farming of tilapia in cages as well as ponds(c) Sea weed cultivation has contributed immensely in providing livelihoods to several farmers in Philippines.However, with the increasing quality requirements in the international markets, farmers are facing manychallenges with the declining environmental qualities that are contributing for the increasing crop failuresand declined profitability. To address these problems, Philippines decided to work with farmers engagedin sea weed farming.(d) Indonesia has made good progress in breeding of groupers and sea bass and several small farmers areengaged in culturing these species both for local as well as export market. As the livelihood of severalfarmers is dependent on these species culture, Indonesia preferred to work on groupers and sea bass asthe commodities.(e) Vietnam has demonstrated its entrepreneurial approach in developing market for various aquaticproducts. Shrimp farming is widely practiced in the country, but like in many other countries, the activityhas been affected by the disease problems. Hence, Vietnam chose to work with shrimp.The training of trainer session was organized to build the capacity of national project partners who in turn wouldtrain the farmers locally using the acquired knowledge. Based on the needs assessment carried out on eachcommodity, the training program was designed taking in to consideration of the needs as well as the overall goalof the project. The training program included technical aspects related to the culture of commodities, marketing,access to information, organization of farmer groups, mainstreaming of gender, coping strategies with variousenvironmental changes and ways to reduce negative impact by adopting good culture practices.The training program was attended by seventeen participants from five countries and they were trained by sixteenexperts drawn from various organizations. Participants had an opportunity to discuss the lecture in the context oftheir country situation and the commodities they have targeted. Each of the countries also presented the needsassessment carried out and based on that participants were given additional support needed to design their owntraining programs. They were also given an opportunity to visit the Asian Institute of Technology and gain3