SHILLONG: Annoyed at the poor growth of fish farming and livestock rearing in the state, Minister of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary HDR Lyngdoh said people here are more interested in fishing competitions than in production.
Addressing a gathering at a seminar on ‘Multiplying Farmers’ Income: Opportunities in Animal Husbandry and Processing of Organic pig and fish Products- Potential for exports-Focus North East’ at Shillong Club on Friday, the minister asked the Fisheries Department to take a serious note of fish farming.
“It seems farmers are not interested in production of fish but interested in other ways of earning as they are more into fishing competition,” Lyngdoh said while expressing his disappointment.
He added that farmers are not focusing on production aspect of fish but the other way round, he went on to add that cash prizes for fishing competition run as high as Rs 1 lakh.
Pointing out that agriculture and allied activities are the main occupation of the people in the state with nearly 80 per cent of its population depending on the primary sector, Lyngdoh said the growth of livestock and poultry population in the period between 2007 and 2012 has not shown much increase except in goats and poultry with an increase of 22.60 percent and 14.55 percent, respectively.
“Although pig farming is the most preferred activity of farmers the increase during the period stood at 7.90 percent whereas growth in cattle population is only 2.25 percent,” he added.
According to the department’s data, the annual requirement of meat in the state available with the department is 42,000 tonnes and to meet the demand about 56.17 percent cattle has to be imported, he asserted.
On pig rearing in the state, the minister said availability of good marker for pork promises wide possibilities of development of pig industry in the state but “the main drawback is that most of the farmers prefer to rear inferior quality of stock and about 88 per cent of the total villages reared nondescript breeds and only 12 per cent reared cross-breed pigs”. In this connection, he said that the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary has taken up schemes to introduce improved breeds of pigs such as Doroc, Hampshire etc which are kept at government pig farms for supply to the interested farmers.
Recently, artificial insemination in pig has been introduced at a pig farm, Nongpiur to improve the production and protection of livestock and promoting scientific method of rearing pigs.
