FUTURE PROTEIN

Photostory By: RET THUANG
Publication Year: 2018
Authorized By: Wonders of the Mekong Project
Photostory Workshop By: Suthep Kritsanavarin / USAID Wonders of the Mekong Project

Tonle Sap and Cambodia’s inland fisheries account for more than two-thirds of Cambodia’s protein consumption and are worth an estimated US$ 2 billion annually. Millions of Cambodians depend on Tonle Sap for protein but now this resource is becoming scarce, therefore major decline of the resource could be disaster. To secure food for millions, people are doing fish farming. People do fish farming with several fish species in Cambodia such as Pangasius djambal and Giant snakehead. Normally, people can’t breed fish locally so they buy small fish from Vietnam. In Kampong Kleang, for example, they bought small fish from Vietnam then release them into small areas covered with net for some time to let them get used to the environment. For fish food, people use bran mixed with water and small fish. To prepare the bran normally they boil water and use a machine to mix with bran, then they cool it before feed ing to the fish. They don’t feed the fish every day, they feed once every two days. Depending on the different kinds of fish species, some fish take them 6 months for farming at the earliest so that they can harvest them. In the rainy season, they use a bamboo range to cover around their fish in the lake. In the dry season or after harvesting the fish, they will collect the bamboo range to keep them at home for next year. Fish farming helps to reduce pressure of over fishing from natural habitats in the fish breeding period and also helps to secure the main protein source for millions of Cambodians.

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