DUSHANBE, April 21, 2009, Asia-Plus — Over the first quarter of this year, 36 fish farms have been founded in the country in addition to eight joint-stock companies dealing with fish-breeding, Muzaffar Mirzoyev, the head of the livestock, fishery, poultry and bee-keeping directorate within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“The fishery sector began developing in the country last year after adoption of the fishery development program,” Mirzoyev said.
In January-March this year, Tajikistan has produced 81,100 tons of fishes, which is two times more than in the same period of last year, the MoA official said, noting that this year’s budget earmarked 300,000 somoni for development of the fishery sector in the country.
We will recall that to develop fish industry in the country the government of Tajikistan established the state unitary enterprise Mohii Tojikiston (Tajikistan’s fishery) in April 2008 and adopted the national fishery development program for 2009-2015 on July 2, 2008.
An item titled “Fisheries Crisis in Central Asia” posted on FAO website on November 10, 2008 noted that fisheries production in the Central Asian and Caucasus republics has plummeted dramatically in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union and today the region”s fishing and aquaculture sectors are in a state of crisis. According to FAO, between 1989 and 2006 annual inland fisheries and aquaculture production in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan fell from between 60 to 72 percent. Tajikistan”s production dropped 94 percent, and Kyrgyzstan”s 98 percent, during the same period. As a result, fish consumption in the entire region is down — to less than 1 kilogram per capita per year — and fish and fisheries products have largely disappeared from the population”s diet. Multiple factors have combined to produce the collapse. These include: overfishing and poor management; dramatic cuts to investment in research and production facilities; decreased spending on maintenance of fleets and hatcheries; weak management of water bodies and other ecological problems, including pollution of rivers; and lack of investment in modern processing and marketing facilities and equipment.
