Gaznar Beel fishers find big business in dried fish

Gaznar Beel, one of the biggest water bodies in the Sujanagar upazila of Pabna, has become a thriving breeding ground for a variety of fish, bringing smiles to the faces of fishermen in the locality.

A beel is a lake-like wetland with static water, which usually begins to recede ahead of winter.

Gaznar Beel covers an area of around 3,100 hectares but as water levels have been receding, fishermen have been netting a huge amount of fish.

However, most beels around the country have also begun to recede, leading to a surge in fish supply across the nation.

So, instead of trying their luck on the oversaturated local market, the fishermen in Gaznar Beel have turned to drying fish. And it is quickly becoming a big business.

"There is adequate fish supply in local markets since we have been netting a huge amount of fish from the waterbody in the past few weeks since water began receding. But due to lacklustre demand, we have to go for drying fish," said Md Abdul Karim, a fisherman of the Masjidpara village in Pabna's Sujanagar upazila said.

Due to the huge supply of fish around the nation ahead of winter, most fishermen in the vast Gaznar Beel were found busy drying fish like Karim.

When visiting the Masjidpara in the upazila headquarters, this correspondent found several hundred fishermen using makeshift bamboo structures to dry various small varieties of fish such as puti, shoil, taki, tengra and chada.

"When water recedes, there is a scope to net a huge number of puti fish and other smaller variety of fish alongside big fish. Due to increased supply ahead of winter, a huge amount of smaller unsold fish were spoilt a few years ago. But now unsold fish are dried and that provides a big boost to fishermen in Gaznar Beel," Karim added.

Not only in Masjidpara, there are several hundred such bamboo structures available throughout the Sujanagar upazila.

"Each maund (37 kilogrammes) of small dried fish, such as puti, is sold for Tk 5,500-6,000 in the Sayedpur wholesale market, which presents a big opportunity to utilise unsold fish," Md Nizam Uddin, a dried fish trader, said.

However, profits have been affected by an increase in the cost of production, owing mainly to higher labour costs.

"The cost of production for each maund of dried fish was less around Tk 4,500 last year but has gone past Tk 5,000 due to excessive labour cost. So we are getting poor profit this year," Nizam added.

Yet, despite the downturn in profit, fishermen were excited by the prospect of increasing production.

According to them, approximately 500-600 tonnes of dried fish will be produced in Gaznar Beel this year.

Speaking to The Daily Star, Sujanagar upazila fishery officer Nur Kazmeri Zaman Khan said fish production increased this year due to a fishing ban that provided room for fish to breed.

"Fishing was mostly banned in October to allow hilsa fish to breed. At that time, Gaznar Beel was full of water so local varieties of fish also got breeding opportunities. That has led to the huge number of fish in the vast water body," Zaman said.

He added that, according to local fishermen, fish production had reached a 15-year high in Gaznar Beel this year.

However, he conceded that they had no actual figures about fish production in the area.

Despite the rise in output, dried fish traders said they needed financial support to strengthen the business in the region.

"Although there is sufficient fish supply in the local market and we have the opportunity to dry a large amount of fish, we do not have not enough financial support for that," Karim lamented.

He added that since fish supply across the country was heightened, demand for dried fish in the wholesale market had yet to increase. As such, Karim believed he would have to wait for months to get a decent profit.

"We are producing dried fish after borrowing money but we cannot sell them at our expected price so we are facing a loss. If we have financial support, the dried fish business can be more profitable for fishermen in Gaznar beel," fish trader Nizam said.

However, Zaman said that the local authority was happy to lend a hand. "If they need financial support, we will help them," he said.