The New Nation - Internet Edition

Our Correspondent, Bagerhat

A high powered two member EU team. (Food and Veterinary Mission) visited Bagerhat, on 19,20,21, Oct. to see for themselves the actual position of shrimp gher Management, depots, hatchery, processing plant, fishing system. etc. They also wanted to know how far HACCP (Hazard analysis critical control point) rules are observed at field level.

The visiting team includes, Macboy, head of the EU mission, quality control officer Raj Patel while Emran, Deputy Secretary, Principal Scientific officer of Fishery Directorate, Mohiuddin, quality control Rafique, Deputy Director. Khulna J.K. Biswas, D.F.O. Bagerhat, Dr. Nitya Nanda Das, Masumoor Rahman U.N.O Rampal, U.N.O. Bagerhat, and Leading shrimp culturists were present.

The team visited a shrimp gher at Ranasen, Rampal, a shrimp gher at Radha Bhallab, Bagerhat, a training session at Sundarban Girls College, Rampal, Rupsha Fish and allied company at Paik Para, Bagerhat.

During their field visit, the Mission circumspectionately examined, the quality of water and its purifying process, shrimp collection system, testing the collected fish, system, Registration of shrimp gher, rate of mortality, antidote to virus, destroy and dumping system of diseased shrimp, packaging and identification of tag and numbering system, sanitation of shrimp farms, date of production storage facility, feeding system, quality offish meal, quality control system etc. They also enquired about the quality of fish meal and other related issue to the local shrimp culturist.

Non compliance of HACCP conditionalities would create a very difficult problem in exporting shrimp to 25 European countries. EU is the major shrimp importing country, which imports 48% of total production of Bangladesh shrimp. they want socially responsive virus free healthy and good quality shrimp.

In the context of International trade exporting of quality shrimp is of para mount importance as it earned 500 U.S dollar in the last fiscal year,since, it has become an exportable traditional item and. as a primary commodity, if we lose the EU market it would rather be a suicidal step for Bangladesh. Our National economy would be in a critical and challenging position.