Aquaculture office plans to assist farmers start businesses

MOROBE in-land fisheries has reached the whole province but not all farmers have access to established markets, an official says.
Provincial aquaculture officer Esther Karahure said as of last year, the programme recorded over 20,000 in-land fish farmers from the nine districts.
She said unfortunately, the total kilogrammes of fish her team landed from the farmers doing semi-commercial farming did not match the number of existing fish farmers.
“Last year, we landed about 800kg,” she said.
Karahure said this was a small amount because they only got fish from farmers around Lae.
“Farmers in more remote areas don’t make it to town markets and their harvest is not recorded.
“They either sell at local markets or have it for their own consumption.”
Karahure’s team plans to continue assisting farmers to reach the level where they can enter business to earn their own income and sustain their operations.
Currently, the team is continuing trial marketing to understand the costs involved when transporting fish to town from various locations.
They aim to establish cool storage for these trial markets to recognise farmers in remote areas such as Menyamya, Wantoat, Sialum to store in respective districts until they reach enough quantity to transport to town.
Karahure said her team needed a budget of K100,000 to be able to accomplish all plans and activities this year.
She thanked the National Fisheries Authority for their continued support and hoped for more support from the provincial government.
“In-land fisheries is a good programme that reaches out to the livelihood of families and we’ve seen huge changes in their lives,” she said.