World Aquaculture Magazine -December 2021

36 DECEMBER 2021 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG used barely changed. Of the small number of Burmese citizens who were able to get formal education in Myanmar and abroad, most left to work in industry in other Southeast Asian countries or international organizations, including FAO andWorldFish (U Win Latt, U Soe Tun, Dr. Nyan Taw). The government was keen for remittances to be sent back to support families of these workers who were able to learn some of the advances in technologies. Starting in 2011, General Thein Sein began to relax the 50-year-old military dictatorship with political and economic reforms. In 2015, democratic elections were held, and the military agreed to share power when the democratically elected government took office in 2016. The reforms that started in 2011 accelerated in 2016 and GDP was increasing by 7 percent per year in 2018 and 2019. Aquaculture was one of the critical sectors contributing to the improving GDP. The aquaculture industry had grown slowly from the 1980s through 2010, mainly by expanding areas for extensive pond culture. In coastal areas, this meant converting mangrove wetlands to extensive shrimp ponds and for inland areas, large freshwater wetland regions were converted into rice paddies and then subsequently into extensive fishponds. All this new productive area allowed Myanmar to join the top ten aquaculture producers, even though the productivity per unit area was relatively low. Many of these farms were owned B etween 2011 and 2021 we have seen one of the largest aquaculture industries in the world bloom and flourish and then be torn down by the avarice, short-sightedness and economic incompetence of a group of military generals. The people of Myanmar (Burma) get the majority of their dietary protein from freshwater and marine seafood. As one of the highest per capita consumers of seafood in the world, the domestic aquaculture and wild-capture industries historically supplied virtually all the domestic demand plus an active export trade. Prior to 2012, the aquaculture industry was dominated by the farming of carps, other freshwater fishes and freshwater prawns ( Macrobrachium ) in extensive polyculture systems. There were also profitable sectors producing shrimp in extensive pond culture, a developing soft-shell crab industry and grow-out of eels collected as juveniles from the wild. In addition to the domestic market, there were some aquaculture exports of shrimp and carps to Bangladesh and the Middle East, mostly used to feed migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. There were also exports of live crabs and eels to China. The EU, US and Japan had embargos against seafood exports as part of the economic pressure applied to the military government after the brutal repression of pro-democracy rallies in 1988. During the long dictatorship (1962-2012) and deliberate isolationism, the economy stagnated and the aquaculture techniques The Rise and Fall of the Aquaculture Industry in Myanmar Kevin Fitzsimmons Harvest of demonstration carp polyculture ponds comparing pelleted feeds to mash. Feeding soft-shell crabs with seafood processing wastes. Stocking Asian seabass into freshwater demonstration pond.