Production And Marketing System Of Fish In Dhanusha, Nepal

Aquaculture is an important agriculture sector in Dhanusha district with the involvement of large number of farming community. An interview-based questionnaire survey of 45 randomly selected fish farmers and 13 fish traders in fish block area of Dhanusha district, Nepal was carried out to appraise current situation of Production and marketing system of fish farming during the period of February to April, 2020. Majority of the farmers (86.76%) had done fish farming as main occupation and was found to be profitable with the average productivity of 5.53 Mt/ha/year and B/C ratio of 1.37. Most of the farmers were practicing carp polyculture however, monoculture and integrated fish farming was also found to be done by few respondents. Fish produced were sold in local market, adjacent districts and also to distant markets. The findings showed that traders were involved in marketing system of fish of which 59.65% of the total was sold to the wholesalers, 30.49% to the retailers and 9.87% was sold directly to the consumers. Commonly used means of transportation were bicycle, motorbike and pickup vans. The study also revealed that farmers were facing several problems like lack of technical knowhow, untimely availability of feed and other inputs, disease and water quality problem, lack of well managed commodity market, poor storage facilities etc. which needs to be addressed to enhance the fish production and marketing efficiency in the study area.