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MFD plans to develop value-added products

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: A Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) plan to develop value-added products in the country has been included in the presentation for the Chief Executive, to be delivered by officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture here on February 2, it is learnt.

MFD has prepared a plan to be executed with the assistance of the Pakistan Seafood Industries Association and the Export Promotion Bureau for developing value-added products.

Sources said that this plan if implemented would help in reducing the post-harvest losses and play an important role in increasing the income of farmers.

Due to the lack of plants for value-added products, our produce is sold at lower rates in the international market.

They said that world over that prawn is considered most nutritious which touches water two times, once in sea and second time before cooking. Our farmers on the other hand try to freeze a salt water creature with ice made from sweet water and this in turn reduces not only its nutritious value but also its price, said sources.

World over fish and prawn, frozen within two hours of catch, are considered most nutritious and expensive while our farmers continue their hunting operations for days in sea without proper freezing system on their boats.

All these factors reduce not only the price of our produce but also its nutritious value although we have the best varieties of marine life in our waters.

Sources said that our farmers are not allowed to catch fish with in our territorial waters. This, they said, is a very big disfavour to the fishers as nowhere this rule applies for the local people.

The MDF has proposed to the government that farmers should be given soft-term loans considering that they do not have financial resources for modifying their ships by installation of fishing gadgets such as ecosounders, GPS, etc.

Sources said the MFD has already started a programme for improvement of fish harvesting methods by developing new fishing gear and designing of improved fishing boats. New technology and methods are being developed to catch squid, octopus and other demurral fishes to tap their potential by exporting these.

However, sources pointed out that without the active support of the government sustainable exploitation of the resources in the economic zones of Sindh and Balochistan coast could not of exploited to their maximum limit.