DFID Suchana, WorldFish Annual Process Monitoring Report for April 2019-March 2020

Abstract

This report has been generated using the online database from Suchana MIS. Total 608 data were collected during 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020. Out of 608 data, 223 were on demonstration ponds (Demo-Ponds), 375 were on Homestead Food Production ponds (HFP-Ponds) and only 10 on Income Generating Activities ponds (IGA-Ponds). Considering the very smaller sample size, findings from IGA-ponds have not presented in the current report. The average pond sizes were 11.4 decimals and 11.3 decimals for Demo-Pond and HFP-Pond respectively. The pond sizes per respondent household were 8.9 decimals and 6.2 decimals for Demo-Pond and HFP-Pond respectively. More proportion of demo-ponds (77%) had single ownership compare to the HFP-ponds (45%). The remaining ponds were joint ownership. Almost entire Demo-Ponds (98.2%) and 86.5% of HFP-Ponds had adequate depth of water at the point of visits. More than ninety percent (95.0%) of Demo-Ponds and 41.9% of HFP-Ponds households responded that they know about the local sources of fingerlings. Overall 80% of Demo-pond and 64% of HFP-Pond beneficiary households harvested fish from their ponds within last 30 days since the interviews. During last 12 months, highest proportion (100%) of Demo-Pond BHHs harvested fish in December 2019 compare to the other months; and lowest proportion (60%) of Demo-Pond BHHs harvested fish in August. But in February and March 2020, highest proportion (100%) of HFP-Pond BHHs harvested fish from their ponds and that was lowest (47%) in October 2019. Demo-Pond BHHs harvested 12 kilograms per BHHs in last 30 days and that was 8 kilograms per BHH for HFP-Pond BHHs. Highest amount of fish harvested in January 2020 from both the Demo-Pond and HFP-Pond BHHs; and those were 40 kilograms per Demo-Pond BHH and 13 kilograms per HFP-Pond BHH. Lowest amount (8 kg) of fish was harvested by Demo-Pond BHHs in June and November 2019; and it was only 5 kilograms per HFP-Pond BHH in October 2019. Water quality was good and color was satisfactory, expected level of natural feed was present in the pond water, regular apply of fish feed, growth of fish was excellent, good or moderate, regular harvest of fish including mola and other SiS especially for consuming by the family members, and varieties of vegetables were grown at pond dykes and surrounding areas. Besides the good progress, some weaknesses were also identified to follow-ups to improve further. April-May are the pick time to encourage the beneficiary households for re-stocking fingerlings for coming season especially those are at flood free zones. Accordingly, they need to take initiatives to repair pond dykes, remove extra mud/ sludge, water hyacinth and other aquatic weeds including bushes from the pond water and dykes, and prune the branches of larger trees from the pond dykes as part of pond preparation. Need to assist for developing linkages between pond operators and reliable market actors (patilwalas, nurseries, hatcheries, lime and feed sellers) for lime, quality fingerlings and fish feed as Suchana will not provide any fish related inputs at earlier phases as they already received the aquaculture related inputs in earlier season.