P ond owners have been banned by the Fishery Section

from building latrines over their fish farms. The move follows the discovery

that some farmers have been partly raising their fish on human excrement in

order to cut costs. The ban is, yet, only regionally effective.

Upon

given the new official instructions, a few have changed their fish feeding

routine, but many are still sitting pretty on the altar-like wooden boxes

showing their sacred things to the ignorant water animals beneath.

Investors start up farms by buying young fish from the great lake Tonle

Sap in March or April, according to Bith Nou, a fish farmer in Chrang Chamres

village, Russeikeo district, north of the capital.

Besides the morning

and afternoon meals - mainly food of cooked rice dust or fish heads - the water

in the pond has to be changed every three months, says Nou.

In August

the fishing season has ended and fish get scarcer at the market. Middle men come

directly to the fish farms.

Apart from the fact that some fish commit

suicide by eating too much food, there are no other serious phenomena which can

disturb their livelihoods, said Nou.