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Blue Revolution

Q. Define blue revolution, explain the problems and strategies for pisciculture development in India.

Answer:

The term “blue revolution” refers to the remarkable emergence of aquaculture as an important and highly productive agricultural activity. The Blue Revolution is important to achieve economic prosperity for the country and the fishers and fish farmers as well as contribute towards food and nutritional security, keeping in view the bio-security and environmental concerns.

Problems of pisciculture development in India:

• High input cost: The cost of inputs per unit of fish weight is higher than in extensive farming, especially because of the high cost of fish feed. Netting involves regular and labour intensive cleaning.
• Social problems: Norms and religious values excluded women or other groups from participation in certain activities. Lack of family encouragement considering lower prestigious occupation.
• Lack of data: There are lack of reliable databases relating to aquatic and fisheries resources in India as well as lack of suitable policies of government and inefficiency of an enforcement agency to monitor the supply of good quality seeds and feeds.
• Lack of finance: Lack of adequate financial support and proper transport and marketing facilities for the products.
• Inadequate family labor: Multiple use of pond water especially domestic purposes restrict the commercial fish farming. Multiple ownership of land is the cause of dispute and opinion diversification. Disputed ownership of water areas.
• Technological problems: Lack of value addition for enhancing profit margin. The market for processed fish is limited in the domestic market and is restricted to fish pickles, cutlets etc.
• Fish production technology is a complex technology: Lack of timely availability of inputs nearby, lack of quality feed in local market, lack of location specific improved technology, inadequate knowledge and skill about scientific fish farm management.

Strategies of pisciculture development in India:

• Growth of the aquaculture sector, particularly brackish aquaculture, is mainly export driven. Thus to sustain the momentum of growth, issues concerning ecological and economic sustainability of brackish aquaculture and its comparative advantage need to be studied on a multidisciplinary and regional framework.
• Focus on the improvements in breeding technology, disease control, feeds and nutrition, and low-impact production systems to complement traditional knowledge to improve efficiency is required.
• Formulation of public and private policies to provide financial support, enhance skill and make farmers aware and capable to practice sustainable pisciculture.
• Emphasis on leveraging the latest information technology for better planning and monitoring is needed.
• Brackish aquaculture should be encouraged only in the areas suitable for the purpose. These should be identified and delineated with the help of remote sensing and GIS techniques to minimize problems of ecological pollution and social conflicts.
• Develop adequate legal and institutional measures to regulate the aquaculture activity in the ecologically fragile zones. These should be implemented and enforced by the local authorities.
• Enforce quarantine measures on fish seed and feed to ensure that the imported material is neither infected nor unwanted.
• Financial institutions should strengthen the flow of credit to the aquaculture sector but with due consideration to ecology and regulatory framework governing this sector.
• For proper planning of freshwater as well as brackish water aquaculture, there is a need to strengthen the current database, which is neither adequate nor easily amenable to proper empirical policy analysis.

India is home to more than 10 percent of the global fish diversity and it ranks second in the world in total fish production. In the present era of food insecurity, pisciculture shows enormous potential to feed the ever increasing human population. Eco-friendly aquaculture in harmony with environmental and socioeconomic needs of the society has to be evolved.