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Guidelines for Sea Cage Farming in India Towards Blue Revolution

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Relation http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/12620/
 
Title Guidelines for Sea Cage Farming in India Towards Blue Revolution
 
Creator NFDB, Hyderabad
DADF, New Delhi
 
Subject Farming/Culture
Cage culture
 
Description Mariculture – the farming of marine organisms for food - is the fastest growing sub-sector of
aquaculture. The global mariculture production including the seaweeds was 54.0 million tonnes
(2014), which constituted 53.4% of the aquaculture production during the same period. In the recent
past the marine fish catch in the country is stagnating around 3.5 million tonnes annually indicating
that increasing the fish catch in the existing fishing grounds is not sustainable economically and
ecologically. Added to this dwindling catch in capture fisheries, rampant unemployment in the
coastal region and demand for additional seafood necessitates the development of mariculture as
a substantial seafood production sector. It has been projected that in India we need to produce
about 18 million tonnes of fishes by 2030 as compared to about 10 million tonnes we produce
today. It implies that our aquaculture production has to increase from 4 million tonnes to 12
million tonnes in the next 14 years. Enhancing fish production from inland sector has limited
scope and the major portion of the additional demand has to come from mariculture.
Sea cage farming is viewed as a major option for increasing the seafood production and has been
expanding rapidly in recent years at global level. Cage culture has made possible the large-scale
production of commercial fin fishes in many parts of the world and can be considered as the most
efficient and economic way of raising fish. When compared to many maritime countries, India is
still in its infancy in cage culture. Recently, it has been estimated that total number of cages of
varying sizes installed in the inshore and brackishwater areas number around 1500 with a total
estimated production of around 1500 tonnes. Hence, there is tremendous scope for the further
expansion of cage farming in India. The ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI)
has projected that even if 1% of the inshore waters is used for cage farming, we can deploy
8,20,000 cages with a production potential of 3.2 million tonnes. Thus, there is an urgent need to
expand sea cage farming in India.
It is understood that availability of suitable sites for cage culture, well established breeding
techniques that yield sufficient quantity of fish fingerlings for farming, availability of supporting
industries like feed and net manufactures, strong R&D initiatives, social, economic and financial
logistics are prime factors that pave the way for expansion of sea cage farming as a commercial
activity. Currently guidelines on the above aspects are lacking in the country and hence a document
on the guidelines to be followed is felt desirable for sustainable growth of sea cage farming in the
country.
 
Publisher National Fisheries Development Board
 
Date 2018
 
Type Monograph
NonPeerReviewed
 
Format text
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/12620/1/NFDB_CMFRI_2018_%20%20Guidelines%20for%20Sea%20Cage%20Farming%20in%20India.pdf
NFDB, Hyderabad and DADF, New Delhi (2018) Guidelines for Sea Cage Farming in India Towards Blue Revolution. Technical Report. National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad.