A worker holds up a farmed fish ready for harvest in Yangon. Pic: Myanmar Times archive

FISH farmers say that in the coming year they will scale back production because the cost of doing business is too high.

“The cost of investing in the fish farming industry has increased three-fold in the last three years,” said U Soe Tint, vice chairman of the Fish Farmers Association.

“In 2005 it cost about K2.5 million an acre to farm fish but that has risen to about K4.4 million this year,” he said.

He added that higher investment costs meant many farmers would probably not commit fully to their operations and would reduce their output.

“If the farmers don’t fully invest in their farms then we will see lower production in the coming year,” U Soe Tint said.

The main reason why costs are mounting is the higher prices of fish feed – which accounts for about 70 percent of the year-on-year costs.

U Soe Tint said farmers are investigating ways to counter the higher feed prices in the meantime and hoping that costs will come down.

“If the feed prices come back down we can focus on producing more fish,” he said.

The government is supporting farmers this year by making loans available to them.

The Myanmar Livestock and Fisheries Development Bank issues loan of K500,000 an acre to farmers and about K600 million has been already been loaned.

U Soe Tint said most fish farmers supply the domestic market and only export when this demand has been satisfied.

“We intend to supply Myanmar’s markets with enough fish so that people can have enough to eat and we only export after that demand is met,” he said.

The association also holds regular meetings with the fisheries exporters to discuss issues that arise in the industry and to expand exports.

“These meetings help us to better understand what the exporters want us to grow and what fish the international market is calling for,” U Soe Tint said, adding that sometimes farmers produce fish that are the wrong size and lose potential profit.

“If exporters tell us on what size of fish are demanded by the market, we can try to produce exactly that size and hopefully get higher prices,” he said.

About 200,000 viss of farmed fish are arriving to the market daily.
Myanmar has about 220,000 acres of fish farms across the country; about half of this area is located in Ayeyarwady Division.

Exports of farmed fish earned about US$73 million last fiscal year and have already earned $70 million this year.