Vice presidential candidate Muhaimin Iskandar pledged to improve the country’s fisheries sector, including its marketing, to ensure the prosperity and empowerment of fishermen and fish farmers.

"Insya Allah [God willing], if we are elected, we will take care [of the fisheries sector] from downstream to upstream – from production until it reaches consumers – so that it benefits freshwater fish farmers," Muhaimin said while campaigning in Tulungagung regency, East Java on Thursday, as quoted by the Antara news agency.

During the event, residents voiced their complaints concerning freshwater fish farming, including rising feed costs, declining quality of fish food and the lack of government support for marketing local fish products.

One of the farmers’ representatives, Muklason, highlighted feed costs as the most significant expense in fish production.

Muklason believed the problem was that the continuous increase in feed costs was not proportional to the rise in market sale prices for the fish.

Muklason then compared the feeding price in 2012, which was around Rp 220,000 (US$13.90) per bag, to the current price of Rp350,000 per bag.

"Meanwhile, the price of catfish used to be Rp 15,000 per kilogram, and now it is Rp 18,000. This means the price only increased by Rp 3,000,” he said.

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