Modern prawn trade center inaugurated for southwestern Bangladesh farmers
DHAKA, Nov. 12 (NsNewsWire) — A joint venture trade center with all modern fish processing and standard facilities has been inaugurated in Bangladesh’s southwestern Khulna district for hundreds of prawn farmers.
The ‘SaFaL – Model Fish Buy & Sell Centre’ was inaugurated by Abdur Rashed, deputy director of Fish Inspection & Quality Control (FIQC), Department of Fisheries, Khulna, (today) Wednesday at Mulia Bazar, Under Mulia union of Narail sadar upazila (sub-district).
The centre is going to be operated with the support from SaFaL programme of the Solidaridad Network Asia and facilitated by Jagoroni Chakra Foundation, said the Solidaridad Network Asia in a statement on Wednesday.
S.M. Enamul Haque, senior Upazila Fisheries officer, Rabindranath Audhikari, chairman of Mulia Union, Hasan Aref, director of Jagarani Chakra Foundation, Shamol Das, proprietor of MU Sea Food, and Masud Karim, principle extension officer of Southwest Project, were present as special guests in the inauguration and opening ceremony with Selim Reza Hassan, Country Manager of Solidaridad Network Asia, in the chair.
Apart from them, Indu Bhushan Roy, programme coordinator, and Sattya Narayan Roy, assistant programme coordinator of Solidaridad Network Asia, among others, were also present.
The buying & selling centre is a joint effort of Solidaridad and M. U Sea Foods Ltd.
From this centre with modern fish processing and standard facilities more than five hundred Prawn farmers will be benefited from the centre by selling their fishes directly without paying to the middle man. Farmers’ will be further benefited by their nearest centre in a fair price or expected price and getting the accurate measurement of their fishes.
The proprietor of M. U Sea Foods Ltd. told in his speech that the buying and selling centre is a very important initiative of Solidaridad Network Asia for the fish cultivators of the Narail Sadar Upazila. He ensured the fair price and cash instantly for the producer. He also requested to the farmers to maintain post-harvest management properly.
The center is a joint effort of Solidaridad and M. U Sea Foods Ltd.
From this centre with modern fish processing and standard facilities more than five hundred Prawn farmers will be benefited from the centre by selling their fishes directly without paying to the middle man.
Farmers’ will be further benefited by their nearest centre in a fair price or expected price and getting the accurate measurement of their fishes.
The proprietor of M. U Sea Foods Ltd. told in his speech that the buying and selling centre is a very important initiative of Solidaridad Network Asia for the fish cultivators of the Narail Sadar Upazila. He ensured the fair price and cash instantly for the producer. He also requested to the farmers to maintain post-harvest management properly.
Deputy Director appraised the initiatives of Solidaridad network to open the buying & selling centre which will be very much helpful for the fish farmers. He also emphasised on shorten the supply chain, quality control, maintaining the fair measurement. He further added that Bangladesh is losing the foreign market due to adulteration and requested MU Sea Food to maintain the quality to ensure the livelihood of the fish farmers’. He ensured his all sort of support from his department to continue the collection centre.
The Chairman of Mulia Union highly appreciated to the Solidaridad for opening the centre in this area as there are a huge number of people are engage with fish production and marketing. The people will be definitely benefited from the centre but he requested the Deputy Director and Country Manager to extend all further support to keep continuation of the centre.
The Programme Coordinator Indu Bhushan Roy informed that multi-stakeholders collaboration is needed to sustain the business innovations.
The Solidaridad Country Manager, Selim Reza Hasan informed that through improving good farm management practices and improving market and supply chain efficiency, we need to brand our products to strengthen our markets at a national and international level. He added that the farmers under the SaFaL Programme are producing organic and adulteration free fish maintaining Good Aquaculture Practice (GAqP).
It is needed to mention here that Solidaridad with support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Bangladesh is implementing the Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Linkages (SaFaL) programme for improving food and nutrition security for 57,000 farm households, disadvantaged landless workers and women in the southwest Bangladesh. SaFaL interventions focusing on producer support for sustainable local ecosystem based enterprise- agriculture, value addition and market efficiency, promote accessibility and availability of certified and safe food for the consumers. Uttaran and Jagoroni Chakra Foundation are the partner organization of the SaFaL programme respectively for the Khulna and Jessore region.