• Burmese
Monday, December 4, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
28 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Features
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Features
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Asia

Go Fish! Minnow ‘Nutrient Bombs’ Deployed to End Malnutrition

by Thomson Reuters Foundation
October 19, 2018
in Asia
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
A man repairs a fishing net on his boat on the Tonle Basac River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Jan. 20, 2017. / Reuters

A man repairs a fishing net on his boat on the Tonle Basac River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Jan. 20, 2017. / Reuters

4.1k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

OU KRALANH, Cambodia/TOLAKCHUIN, India — Phally Chhiv placed a pot of simmering soup filled with fish and greens on a wooden platform outside her one-room home in northwestern Cambodia — using nutrient-packed minnows that experts hope can help to end global hunger.

Three children watched their grandmother prepare their lunch with tiny fish from a backyard pond — one of thousands of families across Asia and Africa being given fish by experts as part of a new project aiming to reduce malnutrition and poverty.

RelatedPosts

Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

December 2, 2023
14.5k
ASEAN Urged to Stop Calling For ‘Inclusive Talks’ Between Myanmar Junta and Its Victims

ASEAN Urged to Stop Calling For ‘Inclusive Talks’ Between Myanmar Junta and Its Victims

December 2, 2023
3.6k
Myanmar’s Junta Faces an Increase in Resistance Attacks in Yangon, Reports Say

Myanmar’s Junta Faces an Increase in Resistance Attacks in Yangon, Reports Say

December 1, 2023
6k

“It will help my grandchildren,” Phally Chhiv, 53, dressed in a paisley and jungle print blouse with khaki slacks, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Ou Kralanh, a village about an hour’s drive from Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple complexes.

“They won’t get diseases so often.”

The NutriFish1000 campaign, launched on Wednesday, aims to improve family nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life by getting pregnant women and children to eat small fish — dubbed “nutrient bombs” — grown in ponds and rice paddies.

Global hunger has been on the rise for three years, according to the UN, which says that one in nine people worldwide do not have enough to eat, and 151 million children under five are stunted by malnutrition.

While almost all rural families in Cambodia eat fish from flooded rice fields during the wet season, stocks have been hit by overfishing and malnutrition remains high because of poverty, disease and a tradition of not feeding fish to young children.

With financing from the World Bank and the UN, NutriFish1000 projects have been rolled out in six countries, including India and Bangladesh, with plans to expand to Ivory Coast, Malawi and Ghana next year.

NutriFish1000 experts have identified 33 species of locally available small fish, up to 10 cm long, that they intend to promote in countries with high malnutrition rates, said Pawan Patil, a World Bank economist.

“In developed countries, there’s already the knowledge that eating certain kinds of fish is good,” he said.

“We’re now translating that into something that is accessible for the poorest of the poor, especially women and children in rural settings, … to produce these fish in a safe, available, accessible and affordable manner.”

Healthy

Cambodians receive 75 percent of their animal protein from fish, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

However, they tend to eat larger varieties — which are under threat from overfishing and environmental degradation — and ignore small fish, said Bun Chantrea, a project coordinator with Malaysia-based WorldFish, part of the NutriFish1000 initiative.

“About seven years ago, fish in the stream in my village started decreasing,” he said. “Many fishers stopped fishing.”

WorldFish has provided 180 families in Cambodia with tiny fish to breed in ponds on their properties, as well as stocking community ponds, which often overflow into rice paddies in the rainy season, allowing fish to breed there too.

Villagers lay nets in the rice paddies, using tall poles to push canoes through a sea of vivid green rice stalks to harvest their catch.

By eating tiny fish, packed with fats, vitamins and minerals like iron, calcium and zinc, pregnant women and children can get the nutrients they need to be healthy.

“[With] small fish, you can even eat the bones, which have lots of micronutrients,” said Shenggen Fan, head of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute. “It’s a perception thing. Somehow we think small fish is waste.”

If the trend of breeding small fish for food catches on, minnows could help reduce malnutrition in Cambodia, where one in four children under five are underweight and one in three are stunted, according to government data.

“These small fish are like nutrient bombs,” said Arun Padiyar, a project manager for WorldFish in India’s eastern Odisha state, where 500 households are using fish farms.

WorldFish has entered into a five-year partnership with the government of Odisha with the aim of growing its fisheries sector and attracting private sector investment.

“The catch we get now is much bigger. It has helped me support my four children,” said Parboti Sri, a 45-year-old widow who fishes at a community pond in the village of Tolakchuin.

“There is also more to eat, which is always good,” said Sri, whose earnings have risen by a quarter to about 4,000 Indian rupees ($54) a month since WorldFish stocked a pond earlier this year.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: FoodHealth
Previous Post

EU Cultivates Asian Leaders on Trade, Climate in Message to Trump

Next Post

Hindu Groups Return to Indian Temple to Block Women from Entering

Thomson Reuters Foundation

Thomson Reuters Foundation

Agency

Similar Picks:

‘We Starve to Feed the Kids’: Myanmar’s Post-Coup Food Crisis Bites Hard 

‘We Starve to Feed the Kids’: Myanmar’s Post-Coup Food Crisis Bites Hard 

July 27, 2023
1.6k
Price Control Panel Fails to Stem Myanmar’s Growing Food Crisis

Price Control Panel Fails to Stem Myanmar’s Growing Food Crisis

August 15, 2023
1.2k
‘We Will Starve to Death’: Fighting Cuts Last Lifeline to Myanmar Town

‘We Will Starve to Death’: Fighting Cuts Last Lifeline to Myanmar Town

August 22, 2023
936
In Thailand

In Thailand, a Tough Life for Burma’s Male Sex Workers

December 13, 2013
28.5k
Inequality

Inequality, Discord and Insecurity in Myanmar’s ‘Sacrifice Zone’ 

September 5, 2022
4.1k
Former Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye (center) with Mine Phone Sayadaw (left).

Once-powerful General Maung Aye Now Confined to Wheelchair

May 29, 2018
9.6k
Load More
Next Post
Policemen control members of Hindu groups at the Nilakkal Base Camp to prevent them from clashing with women entering Sabarimala temple for the first time in centuries, in Pathanamthitta, in the southern state of Kerala, India, October 17, 2018.  / Reuters

Hindu Groups Return to Indian Temple to Block Women from Entering

Firefighters extinguishing a fire at a Rohingya IDP camp in Sittwe Township. / Rakhine State Fire Services Department

6 Rohingya Died in Fire at Sittwe IDP Camp

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

2 days ago
14.5k
As Myanmar’s Junta Loses Control, Its Coup Leader Ratchets Up His Blame Game

As Myanmar’s Junta Loses Control, Its Coup Leader Ratchets Up His Blame Game

3 days ago
6.1k

Most Read

  • Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

    Operation 1027 Will Not End Until Myanmar’s Junta is Removed, Ethnic Army Says

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar’s Civilian Government Takes Control of Seized Funds

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Charting the Shifting Power Balance on Myanmar’s Battlefields 

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ASEAN Urged to Stop Calling For ‘Inclusive Talks’ Between Myanmar Junta and Its Victims

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar’s Junta Faces an Increase in Resistance Attacks in Yangon, Reports Say

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Features
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.