INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT - Praneet Phadungwitwattana

Where do you send your fish meal product and what it is used for?

This fishmeal is used for animal feed: chicken and fish. But first, it has to be sent to C.P.

You mean C.P. Company, right?

Yes, the C.P. Company.

Where did the trash fish come from?

They all came from the sea, from the fishing boat.

Do the fishermen intend to fish these kind of fish or they were just the byproduct?

They were just byproduct from the trawler.

What percentage from fishing is trash fish? Also, what percentage is other marketable fish?

About 30 % is trash fish, another 70% is the marketable fish.

What percentage of the fishmeal will be used for shrimp feed and chicken feed?

It depends on the C.P. Company. They are the mixers. For me, I don’t know.

Is it good to have this fishmeal plant? Does it create jobs for the community? How many employees you have in this plant?

We have more than 100 workers in this plant. I think it is a good thing.

Where do the workers come from?

They are all local people.

What is the capacity of this plant? How much production per day?

It is not constant. But we can get input 100,000 kg or 100 tons a day.

When is the maximum peak of the fish?

It is from February to April. But in November and December the number will be low, because of the windy season. We can’t fish well in that time.

How about the fishermen? Do they fishing well for this period of the time?

Yes, right now, they do pretty good. The only bad thing is that expensive gasoline.

Can you compare the fish yield between now and the past 10 years or when you just started working?

Within the last five years, the fish yield was much higher.

You mean for the trash fish yield, right? Why was the fish-catch lower?

We have more number of fishermen, and better fishing gears than before.

You said, there was an increase in the number of boats, but why were there lower numbers of fish caught?

Fish-catch was lower, probably because we have more plants. In Kantang, nowadays, there are several plants, not just only this one.

How many fishmeal plants?

There are five plants.

Are there any imported trash fish?

No, there are not.

No, really?

But there were imports 10 years ago.

Where did they come from?

They were imported from Singapore. But they were imported as final product.

Imported as fishmeal powder, right?

Yes, as fishmeal powder.