What this is all about?

Grameen means "rural" or "village" in Bangla, so literally this translates to 'Stories from the Village.' I travelled to Bangladesh in 2010 and did an Internship with the Grameen Bank and was amazed by the people there especially in its rural villages. The 'desh' and its people are an inspiration and will always have a special place in my heart.

Since then, I continually see how important villages are, be it in rural Bangladesh, or in urban core neighbourhoods in Canada. A strong village is what brings people together and welcomes newcomers and supports those in need. Villages are what I fight for and this blog is how I do it.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Grameen Fisheries

So on our trip to Bogra, we visited Grameen Danone, Grameen Healthcare Services, and the monastery on Tuesday and then that night we drive to the fisheries rest house an slept there. The next morning we got a tour around the fisheries.

Our cute little rest houses, covered in flowers


Catching fish to sell in the market

The fisheries have a hatchery, and then a series of different sized man made ponds where they raise the fish. The fish slowly graduate through the different ponds as they get bigger, until they are in an adult pond like the one in the picture above.

The ponds are looked after by the community and each family who helps with the fish gets a share of the profits that they make when they sell them. I forget exactly the names of the types of fish, but I think one of the more common ones, and higher quality is called Rui. I think I tried it once, in a curry and it was definitely very yummy, apparently it also has fewer bones, but I still spent a lot of time picking out the bones.

They trap some of the fish in a small section and then sort them by size and type, in the background you can see fishes jumping to escape the net, some actually make it over.

Proudly showing off the biggest fish from todays catch

Off to the Market!

The take the fish still alive to the market in little buckets and barrels of water. I guess they want to be able to prove that the fish a really fresh and have not been sitting around for long. The fish markets that we have visited have the fish still flopping around on the display.

The Hatchery

To grow the fish they have a separate pond for females and then they bring them into the hatchery and give them hormone. Then they squeeze the eggs out and do the same with the males to fertilize the eggs. The eggs hatch in about 3 days in the hatchery, before they are transported to nursery ponds. They spend a couple weeks (3 I think) in the nursery pond before they are moved to an intermediate pond where they spend 6 months. Finally they are moved to the adult pond for another 6 months or so before they will be caught and taken to be sold in the market.

Three day old baby fish!

2 comments:

  1. Nice post! Many people invest a large amount of money and time in their bass fishing; although that is mainly for tournament fishing. The boats they use have huge motors so they can get to the hot spots as quick as possible. For what they are trying to accomplish no doubt that is what is needed. Thanks for sharing your experience!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. OMG! Awesome informative post ! Decide which you want before you buy. Kayaks for fishing will not have the speed through the water of a recreational kayak because they are broader in the beam.

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