Message from the Ecoprawn Country Coordinator
Professor
Dept. of Economics and Sociology
Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh
Country Coordinator, Ecoprawn
The project entitled ‘Climate-friendly and climate-resilient prawn farming in Bangladesh (ECOPRAWN)’ is funded by DANIDA, Denmark and collaborated among PSTU, BAU and University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The aim of the project is at mitigating and adapting prawn farming in Bangladesh to climate changes. The project management structure and research activity was divided into 4 work packages (WPs). Methods for analyzing GHG (CO2 and methane) emission in prawn ponds, method of alleviating seawater-induced prawn diseases, techniques for measuring economic feasibility and efficiency and option of implementing greenhouse gas emissions reduction pushed by governance of value chains will be studied in WP1, WP2, WP3 and Wp4 respectively.
Officially the project started functioning from 1 April 2022. In total 8 PhD students, 2 from each work package have been selected for the double degree program to be awarded both from UCPH and Bangladeshi Universities through a rigorous interview consisting of members from UC, PSTU and BAU.
All the project members including PhD students will visit the prawn farms located at Khula, Satkhira and Bagerhat to gather practical knowledge and challenges faced by the prawn farmers during 27th November to 1st December 2022. The prawn hatcheries, processing centers, traders, importer and researchers of this field and other stakeholders will also be visited. We have a plan to organize a start-up conference on 1st December, 2022 in presence of the eminent scientists from Universities, Department of Fisheries, Designators of BFRI, World Fish etc. The project partners will share their views and practical experiences with the experts, policy makers, academician, advisors, practitioners, researchers and farmers engaged in the this field over there during the conference.
I expect that the inputs from the experts and stakeholders will be taken into consideration while conducting the research in different work packages and preparing the PhD dissertations of the students. The major output of this project is to publish scientific paper in international refereed journals by PhD students and researchers.. A big database on Ecoprawn from different dimension will also be an outcome of this project, which might be used for further researches in future. The project will definitely contribute for capacity building of the faculty members and researchers of both PSTU and BAU by organizing a number of courses, training, and seminars related to this topic.
Certainly, the research outputs on GHG emission, salinity intrusion, probiotic introduction, IMTA adaption and farm economics of prawn aquaculture would contribute to the improvement of food and nutritional security and economic development of Bangladesh. I hope, the ‘Policy Notes’ from Ecoprawn project will highly be considered in formulating future aquaculture policies of Bangladesh.
Finally, I am highly thankful to all the project members from PSTU, BAU, UCPH and other organizations for their contributions towards a good start of the Ecoprawn project. Again, I wish to strengthen the on-going collaboration under such suitable new project addressing the emerging issues prioritized for both European University and Bangladeshi partners.
I wish the Ecoprawn project a grand success.
Professor Badiuzzaman
Country Coordinator, Ecoprawn