Title : Fisheries and aquaculture research and development in India
Abstract:
Fisheries and aquaculture development in India has exhibited tremendous growth in recent years. Fish production in India has reached an all -time high of 14.6 million metric tons during 2019-20.The gross value added (GVA) by the fisheries sector to the national economy stood at INR 2,12,915 crores, constituting 1.24 % of the total national GVA and 7.28 % of the agricultural GVA. India exported 12,89,651 MT seafood worth US$ 6.68 billion (INR 46,663 crores). The seafood export is targeted to reach INR 1 lakh crore by 2025. The country is rich in aquatic genetic resources which are very varied and widely distributed extending from deep sea to the cold Himalayan rivers constituting about 10% of the global aquatic biodiversity. While the inland and marine capture fisheries production in the country have more or less stabilized, the growth in aquaculture has been tremendous. The freshwater aquaculture contributes to about 85-90 % of the farmed fish followed by brackish water shrimp farming contributing significantly. The marine aquaculture is in infancy stage in the country. The research and technological advances including rapid disease diagnostics and management, use of genetically improved seed, aquaculture species and systems diversification and above all the human resources development with new scientific skills of the farmers have enabled the county to significantly enhance the production and productivity particularly in the fresh and brackish water aquaculture sector. The recent progress in cage culture in reservoirs and mariculture in the coastal states offer new avenues and scope for further development The major constrains in the capture fisheries production are depleted stocks due to habitat degradation, overexploitation, poor governance, climate change impacts and harvest and post -harvest losses. The key problems in culture fisheries include low productivity due to low adoption of technology, disease prevalence, non-availability of quality seed, cost effective feed for desired species . The cutting edge translational research and technology upscaling and dissemination, improved governance, fisher and farmer centric fisheries policy support and large scale capacity building for both aquaculture and marine sector including exploitation of deep sea fisheries resources are critical for achieving the targets of blue revolution in the country.
