a compliance study of Bangladesh shrimp aquaculture - The United ...

Seraj5 SHRIMP AQUACULTURE PRACTICES IN BANGLADESHThe shrimp aquaculture of Bangladesh has a long history. Hundreds of years ago, the coastalpeople started using the tidal water within the paddy fields during January to June foraquaculture. There was no fry stocking, no artificial feeding, liming, fertilization or aeration.They used to trap tidal water harvest shrimp and finfish after two to three months time. Onlythe wild seeds of shrimp and fish carried by tidal water were allowed to grow without anyintervention. The production of shrimp was very low at that time. But they got sufficient fishand shrimp for their consumption. By the late 1960’s, almost all the canals and small andmedium sized rivers were closed by cross dams because of construction of embankmentsthrough the coastal belt to protect intrusion of saline water into rice fields.5.1 Development PhaseAfter the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, people grew interested in increased shrimpproduction because of increased price and demand in the international market. Some localpeople forcibly cut open the embankments in some areas and started shrimp culture in theirrice fields. From the late seventies or early eighties, the shrimp culture expanded steadily. Inaddition to trapping natural shrimp seed, farmers started stocking of Bagda (Panaeusmonodon) PL caught from the rivers and coast line. Since then there has been a continuousexpansion of shrimp farming area and production (Figure 6). Before 1980, shrimpaquaculture area was only 20,000 ha, in 30 years it expanded 10 fold and presently 217,877 ha(Karim, 1986 and DoF, 2008b).Figure 6: Increase of shrimp farming area of Bangladesh, 1980-2007 (DoF 2008b)Shrimp production before 1980 was low. It started increasing rapidly during the 1990’s and itstill increasing in a good pace (Figure 7). During the last 30 years, shrimp production fromaquaculture has increased more than five fold, from 14773 mt in 1986-87 to 86840 mt in thefiscal year 2006-07 (DoF, 2008b).UNU-Fisheries Training Programme 22