Market problem. Not the fish

Been busy learning a lot and doing much of research to achieve the optimum techniques to farm these fishes up to it's best quality meat texture and flavor without the use of chemical. And we realize cheap fishes could be as good as the expensive ones we eat in the restaurants. I personally do not like freshwater fish too much and was disappointed many times eating them in restaurants. However, the perception has changed since we gave the best of food to my fishes and kept them clean. These fishes are actually much fresher and tastier than eating them in restaurants. Even cheap and always-under-valued fish like the big head carp is awesome. wecannot believe how smooth the texture of the big head carp is until we started farming them on my own. Definitely, not self praising our fishes and they are just awfully under-valued.

It breaks my heart knowing that in Malaysia we do not have standards on our fishes and probably also because some people wouldn't pay to eat fishes when they are the healthiest meat on earth. Fishes could be affordable and healthy to eat. It doesn't have to be expensive if there weren't greed among the middleman, restaurants and farmers.

Why are farmers dying? Many farmers closed down recently. Why? They couldn't sustain! Land is expensive and feeds are very very very expensive. I am not sure about live stocks but fish price are being controlled. Not by government. Not controlled as in it will stay the same or being valued by some NGOs when it should go up. It is being controlled by middleman. When there is too much fish in the market, price can go all the way down and when there's lack of supplies, it would go way up as well. And for us, farmers, when it goes way way way down, it goes down and stay there for a longest time ever. Food price generally will never go down when it goes to consumer. Whether consumer purchase fish in the morning market, super market or eat in restaurants, rarely would you see food price go down. But for us, farmers, it does and until the extend many of us couldn't survive.

These fish pellets/fish feeds price are constantly going up. In one year time, the price of a 20kg pellets can go up by RM3. It is a pretty high percentage in one year. It's heart wrenching if we were to call it quit. It took us a long way and time to reach here. If we, the young generation do not start farming, what will our next generation eat in the future?

I hope, we can go on, fight on to make farming a better career for mankind. We shall start figuring something new to break the in between people who are earning too much.