FPK News – Working visit of Secretary of West Kutai Fisheries Office, Dr Sukwanto, S.Kep.Ners., M.Sc. at the beginning of October 2018 in the context of consultations relating to the empowerment of land fishermen and aquaculture in Kutai Barat. The working visit of West Kutai regional officials illustrated that UNAIR’s Faculty of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs was heard echoing to West Kutai, said the Dean of FPK in his remarks. All leaders of the Faculty of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Secretary of the Department of Aquaculture-Aquaculture Health Management (MKI-BP) and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Lecturers from the two Departments attended the meeting with West Kutai regional officials.

Dr. Sukwanto conveyed a work program plan from the West Kutai Fisheries Department that received the green light from the Deputy Regent of West Kutai. There are two things that are of concern, namely the improvement of land fishermen’s human resources through training of fishermen groups and the development of freshwater cultivation. The training of land fishermen groups prioritized how to change their mindset to have the desire to make money from the fisheries sector. The limited quality of human resources has led to unsuccessful loan funds from the West Kutai Cooperative for land fishermen in the sense that the loan funds did not return, said Dr. Sukwanto.

The development of freshwater aquaculture is needed by Kutai Barat, considering the fish consumption needs of the people of West Kutai are mostly supplied from Balikpapan. For land fishermen, fish seeds are obtained from the Kutai Barat Fish Seed Center. The type of local fish developed in the Fish Seed Hall is baung and natural catfish. Several proposals were submitted by FPK lecturers as speakers, including: the development of baung hatchery techniques which are domestic fish, a simple technique for making feed from local wisdom for fish farming, the development of backyard hatchery for fish seed production by utilizing vacant land at home, create a pilot pool or demonstration plot.

Dr. Sukwanto conveyed every month the Governor of East Kalimantan invited a meeting of all regional officials in East Kalimantan, so that it was a good opportunity for FPK Unair to provide a kind of public lecture from FPK fisheries experts in front of local officials. “The most dominant data on human resources, natural resources and fish species in Kutai Barat is needed in planning for a freshwater aquaculture development program in West Kutai Regency,” said the Dean of FPK. It was also conveyed that the national level Faculty community service activities would be transferred to Kutai Barat. The working visit of the Secretary of the West Kutai Regency Fisheries Office was ended by reviewing the fish pond and catfish farming with an aquaponic system managed by FPK UNAIR.

Author: Wahju Tjahjaningsih