Present status of freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) farming in Dinajpur District of Bangladesh

Abstract

A year-long investigation, on the farming status of freshwater prawn in Dinajpur district of Bangladesh, revealed that prawn was cultured in polyculture systems with finfish in ponds (94.64%) and rice fields (5.36%). Average pond areas of 51.78% farmers were less than 0.50 acre and average depth 1.52m. Solely farm made feeds, manufactured with mustard oil cake, rice bran, maize bran, wheat bran, were applied by 41.07% farmers and commercial feeds by 30.36%. Feeds were applied manually twice daily by most of the farmers. Different social, technical and financial problems faced by farmers (91.07%) were unavailability and higher price of prawn seed, electricity, lack of proper knowledge on prawn farming etc. Although prawn culture can contribute to uplift the socio-economic status of the farmers, it was a recent and subsistence practice and not adopted widely by the farmers.