Alexandra Pounds, in collaboration with Dr. Faruk Islam at Practical Action, visited rice farms and fish markets in Rangpur District in early December. There, they interviewed farmers and retailers to learn how tilapia fingerling production in rice fields, introduced in the mid 1990’s, has changed over time.

The original project is described in theses and publications by the University of Stirling PhD students Dr. Benoy Kumar Barman and Dr. Mohammad Mahfujul Haque, both supervised by Dr. Dave Little. Their publications on the project can be found here and here.

The recent investigation revealed that there has been a commercialization of the system, where farmers are relying on fingerling production as an important source of their income. Farmers are diversifying the ways in which they produce fingerlings, including the use of ponds when water levels in the rice fields are too low. While the practice does not seem to have spread into other districts due to limited water resources, those who are practicing it in the Rangpur District have intensified their production. The questionnaire also revealed that there is a strong link between fingerling production and seafood consumption: families of farmers producing fingerlings ate fish 5-7 days per week, often from their own fingerling stocks, while farmers who did not produce fingerlings ate fish 1-2 days per week.

The information from this visit will be used to create educational materials for the AquaCase 3.0 Website, under EURASTIP Workpackage 2 funding.