Nawalparasi, May 8: “I don’t own even a piece of land and I have been living as a landless squatter. My only means of livelihood is fishing. Until three years ago we could not sell enough fish in the market and offen had to return home empty handed. But following the launching of the fish drying project at our own initiative, that problem does not exist any more.”
Thus narrating her recent past, Punam Chaudhari, a member of the Janajyoti fish farming women’s group of Manjhariya in Nawalparasi district Ramgram municipality, participated in the handing over ceremony of the fish drying project. She has become quite optimistic after the launching of the project. She says, ” so what if we do not own any land ? The fish farming women’s group has been formed and it has its own ponds. We undertake pisciculture, sell the dry fish in the market, and earning a livelihood has become easy ”
Suneeta Harijan, another landless squatter, said, “after fishing through hard effort, we had to sell the catch at nominal prices, causing us great distress. Sometimes, when the fish are not sold, we stew and eat them ourselves. At times, the unsolf fish putrefied. Such situations will not recur for us anymore.”
Thanks to the fish drying project launched by Janajyoti fish farming women’s group, the problems of Punam, Suneeta and other fish farmers are being resolved.
A three-room house for the fish drying project has been built here with the cooperation of the Australian Government under fao’s telefood project with technical assistance from the District Agriculture Development Office and the initiative of the women Farmers Development Division at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.
The project , completed at a cost of us $ 9,500, has two solar dryers, one smoking chamber, two refrigerators and other apparatus .
Construction work on the project using solar power to dry fish was completed in December 1999 and the production of dry fish started in 2000. This is the first project in Nepal to use a solar drier for fish. So far, 600 kg of fresh fish has been dried and 103 kg (excluding the heads) sold.
The group purchases fresh fish at the rate of Rs 60 per kg and sells the dried fish at Rs 500 per kg. 5 kg of fresh fish yields 1 kg of dried fish.
Janajyoti women fishing group, active since 2052 Bikram Era, has 23 members at present. Established with the objective of taking up pisciculture along with agriculture to enhance economic and social status, the group aims at taking up poultry and agro-vet in the near future.
As there is not enough fish in the ponds used by the group it takes fish from 20 neighbouring groups also. Over 28 women farmers groups are engaged in fish farming in the district. The fish is dried especially in the winter.
Women from backward communities such as the Tharu, Chaudhari, Pasi, Chamar, Kohar and Harijan are associated with the groups.
The District Agriculture Development Office aims at developing the project, established as a model for the whole kingdom, in to a training centre for the women of other districts also.
The pocket areas for fish farming in the district are Daldale, Amaltari, Kushma, Jahada and Manari while improved fish farming has been undertaken at Prasauni, Narasahi and Badaharadubaliya.
The areas covered by ponds and natural lakes used for pisciculture are 230 hectares and 125 hectares respectively. Public and private ponds number 202 and 533 respectively.
The number of families involved in this occupation is 520. The annual output of fish is 469 mt while the productivity of the ponds and natural lakes is 1.7 mt and 0.6 mt per hectare respectively.
The annual income from fish farming is Rs 28,140,000. There are two fish hatcheries and two fish nurseries in the district. At present two species of common carp, two of Chinese carps, three of local carp and twelve varieties of other fish are being bred.
The dried fish produced by the group is sold especially at Butwal, Parasi, Narayangadh, Pokhara and Kathmandu.
Group chairman Madhuri Chaudhari says that the group is not short of capital for meeting the requirements demand for dried fish and calls for the transfer of the land on which the project house has been built to the group.
Head of the District Agriculture Development Office Shukra Kumar Pradhan said that the women of the district who used to be too shy to go out of their houses have now increased their income through the fish drying project. The increased income has has helped solve some of their domestic problems including quarrels with family members. Planning officer of the District Agriculture Development Office Bheem Singh Acharya underlines the need to launch such projects at other places also.