Pond fish culture
Md. Billal Hossain Chandpur
Being a protein deficit nation, we are struggling with a lot of problems of nutrition which could not be solved in a day. Having a lot of rivers and water bodies, we may be a nation with surplus fish. But the scene is quiet opposite. We have huge water bodies without fish. If some persons start to culture fish in the unutilised ponds, a cross section of people would generally raise the question of clean water source from the pond.A segment of people of our society is still 100 years behind thinking in terms of productivity. They seem to be thinking that all ponds and water bodies in the rural or suburban areas should be filled with clean water and there is no necessity of the existence of fish. People will use that clean water for different purposes. But what we found in the previous decades? All unutilised water bodies were the ultimate reservoirs of mosquitoes and harmful insects. Sometimes the authorities started crash programmes for cleaning the unutilised water bodies. But that had no meaning in production terms. Availability of clean water for household use and utilising the water bodies through fish culture are two different things. Clean water may be provided through digging wells or by setting up shallow tubewells. If an arsenic free water layer is not available in the tubewell, then fresh water can be managed through digging canals by connecting the rivers. But fish culture should not be discouraged by raising the question of clean water availability. No doubt, public health is also an important factor, but we can maintain it without stopping fish culture in the ponds by adopting alternative steps. We should encourage the fish cultivators by rewarding them for perfect utilisation of water bodies, instead of discouraging them.
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