Overview of pond aquaculture in Nepal

Pond aquaculture is the foremost contributor to the aquaculture contributing 80.25% (58,433 mt. tonnes) to the total aquaculture production in fiscal year 2017/18. There are 44,722 ponds covering 11895.31 ha area in Nepal with the productivity 4912 kg/ha. Among, the different agro-ecological region, terai region is the main contributor to aquaculture as large number of ponds covering the highest area are located in this region. The highest production of pond aquaculture is from Province-2 followed by province-5. The various challenges faced by the farmers in Nepal are lack of technical knowledge, lack of sustainable fingerling supply system and lack of infrastructure development related to fish farming due to less priority of government in fisheries sector. Hence, the government should develop the plan and policy to disseminate the technical knowledge among fish farmers, management of fingerlings production and supply channel at the community level.