Development of Culture and Capture Fisheries

Promoting a competitive Approach among Stakeholders

An innovative and a revolutionary concept that connotes an intimately participatory approach by fisheries stakeholders for the development of fisheries will certainly be welcomed by all concerned, but with the guilt that this line of thinking has taken time, until the Fisheries College and Research Institute, Thoothukudi, Tamilnadu, under the leadership of Prof (Dr) Nandeesha gave a shape to it by announcing the organisation of a national level competition to  document innovations of farmers in the field of fisheries and aquaculture.

In the aforesaid background, there is a focal message from the College urging all concerned to help the deserving stakeholders to document their innovations and send them to the organisers to become part of a nation-wide project to be developed by the College on the subject. It is explained that the purpose behind this initiative is to harness the dormant potential among the fisheries stakeholders (farmers and fishers) to enhance the national fish production on a sustainable basis. There has been an appeal that those who are agreeable to join the movement may articulate their support to it to form a part of it.

One encouraging feeling that the Tamilnadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS), under which the Fisheries College at Thoothukudi comes, has generated is that it has voluntarily come out to provide prize money to be awarded to one of the innovative stakeholders. Over and above this, the College has also committed itself to expose the innovators to different environments and cultures prevailing at various fisheries centres. TANUVAS, as it is, has Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with some of the Fisheries Universities and Institutions within India and also with some of them outside the country. Availing of this plus point as an advantage, the College of Fisheries, Thoothukudi is stated to be working on securing their involvement in the movement and enlist their support to it in all possible ways. One of the ideas on which the College is working upon at present is to open up the innovative farmer stakeholders in a telling manner to the advances made in the culture and capture fisheries sectors in the other developed and developing countries. The College proposes to develop web-based access to information facilities on innovation/advances made there at and link the same to websites of various fisheries institutions/organisations in the country as a means of progressively spreading advanced aqua farming practices as gathered through websites all over the nation. In this endeavour, purposeful linkages are proposed to be developed with the various State Fisheries Departments, related Central Fisheries Research Institutes, Fisheries Universities and their Constituent Colleges, progressive farmers and their associations etc. The recent developments in respect of aqua farming of Pompanos (Pomfrets), Cobia, sea bass etc., that took place under the auspices of CMFRI and RGCA are now planned to be accorded focal priority for the benefit of the farmers and through them to the domestic fish consumers and to the exporters.

The aforesaid developmental aspect would be tempered with a competitive approach so as to inculcate a spirit of positive and well-directed fisheries promotion, among stakeholders that involves documentation of the advances achieved by the stakeholders (aqua farmers and fishers). This documentation will pave the way not only for the recognition of the deserving aqua farmers and fishers and their organisations but also for strengthening their endeavours among all those actively in the profession, mainly the fisheries scientists and technocrats on the one hand, and the aqua farmers and fishers in the forefront, on the other. The promotional work will bring the fish processing and marketing components much more closer to the producers and this would unleash benefits of quality fish supplies to the consumers at prices that would be economically viable to the producers, traders and also the consumers.