Islamabad, August 11, 2021 (PPI-OT): Cage Culture Cluster Development project is funded under the Prime Minister Agriculture Emergency Programme and executed through Fisheries Development Board (FDB) of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Islamabad. This is an umbrella project with aim to train local farmers of the sector further to support capture fisheries of the country.
Dr. Safia Mushtaq, Project Director (PD) of the project along with her team has conducted a survey from 2nd August to 7th August to monitor the till date progress of Punjab component. During the visit she briefed that under the project there is a provision to established 3 model farms and trained 1250 personal in which 50 are Master Trainers’ who will further impart trainings to 1,200 fish cage farmers, hatchery operators, investors in aquaculture business, and labour force for aquaculture enterprises.
The Fisheries Development Board has a plan to develop skilled human resource for the promotion of cage culture farming to increase fish production, economic uplift, and poverty elevation. Monitoring visit conducted to the sites where subsidy based 500 cage farms were installed and inspected the civil work of health labs that are being established under the project.
Cages are installed at Jamal Dam, Qibla Bandi Dam, and Chashma Lake, Ghazi Ghat, Head Punjnad and Head Qadirabad while 3 health labs are established at Sargodha, Multan and Gujranwala. The installed 500 cages will be fully operational in next coming year and fish production of 600 metric tons is assumed to be produced on annual basis from these cages. Further 500 cages as per PC-I target will be installed during the current fiscal year.
Work on fish health labs will also be completed during the current fiscal year and will be operational in 2022-23. These labs will monitor fish and water health and provide early warning service to cage farming for any disease outbreak. The Project Director (PD) also held a meeting with Director General Fisheries, Department of Fisheries Punjab and Malik Muhammad Ramzan Project Director (PIU, Punjab) at Lahore to admire the efforts of Punjab upon completing the PC-I targets for the year of 2020-21 and throughout cooperation.
It was discussed that training and capacity building of new cage farmer’s schedule of training program at different venues in Punjab initially will kick start in last week of this month. The training will address the technical aspects of cage technology, such as seed stocking, feeding management, growth monitoring, water quality monitoring, net cleaning and maintenance, and fish harvesting etc. The visit ended with a strong understanding for future cooperation between the parties.
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