The Ministry of Blue and Green Economy, Agriculture & National Food Security’s Fisheries Division/Aquaculture Unit has now successfully completed its third distribution of seedlings/ larvae or ‘prawn seeds’ to farmers island.
The Jimmit Hatchery which was devasted after Hurricane Maria has now been operationalized and technical officers locally are able to reproduce and multiply prawns for mass distribution to the cadre of farmers. Prior to this post larve would have to be imported from neighbouring islands and this negatively impacted on the output of farmers.
Last week three farmers Marvin Daniel post larve (North), Charles Gardier (West) and George “Joey” Fontaine (South) received in just about 60,000 seedlings in total.
In collaboration with the FAO, a two-phase project to include a value chain for aquaculture operations and its farming systems and direct investments for farmers has recently been launched.
Presently freshwater prawns are being sold between $25-$30 per lb and the demand for these commodities including tilapia as a source of protein has been increasingly steadily.
