Successful cage culture (farming) initiatives by CMFRI during the 11th Five Year Plan

Abstract

Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) has initiated open sea cage farming as an R&D effort during 2006-07 with support from Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. An indigenous cage of 15m diameter was launched at Visakhapatnam with primitive mooring techniques and stocked with 9000 nursery reared seabass seed of 50 g size. After 45 days the cage developed technical problems, drifted and hit the coast, and most of the fish escaped into the sea. However, the cage and nets were salvaged and analysed for several related issues. The juveniles retrieved had reached 150-350 g size which indicated good growth. With this valuable "setback" a new cage with modifications in design and mooring was launched in December 2007. Considering the previous experiences, importance was given to structural stability and safety of the cage. In this endeavour, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, West Bengal was consulted, which collaborated in engineering aspects of the cage. As a consequence of this and for easy manoeuvring, 6 m diameter cages were designed recently, to cater to the needs of small farmers. The mooring and other aspects were also suitablv modified. The volume of each cage is about 170 m and production potential is about 4-5 t of fish. Further impetus was given by the participation of National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) in the demonstration of open sea cage framing by sponsoring 14 cages of 6 m diameter. These cages were launched at different places, one at Sutrapada, Gujarat, 2 at Vasai, Maharastra, 2 at Mangalore, Karnataka, 2 at Cochin, Kerala, 2 cages at Pulicat, Tamil Nadu, one each at Nellore, Kakinada and Baruva in Andhra Pradesh and one cage near Balasore in Orissa. Apart from these, there are 12 cages Including one with 15 m diameter, three each at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Mandapam in Tamil Nadu, Karwar in Karnataka and Vizhinjam in Kerala. In the mariculture farm at Karwar, at present there are 23 cages of different dimensions.