Mariculture was touted as integral to increasing the production of seafood in India at the annual meeting of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) on Saturday, 8 April in Kochi, India.
The meeting was focused on encouraging investment in Indian mariculture in order to increase the country’s fish production and spur exports. The event’s keynote speaker, J.K. Jena, the deputy director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), told an audience composed of scientists, policymakers, research managers, academics and industrialists that mariculture was “one of the best alternatives for ensuring the food security in the country.”
“Since the union government is deliberate on eradicating poverty in India by 2030, it will promote and encourage all initiatives to increase the production in food and nutrition sectors,” Jena said.
India’s mariculture industry produces more than five million metric tons of product annually valued at INR 350 billion (USD 5.4 billion, EUR 5.1 billion). However, CMFRI Director A. Gopalakrishnan urged those at the meeting to look beyond shrimp farming to spur a more diverse and healthy mariculture economy.
“Apart from the traditional monotonous single species-oriented culture systems, India should go for multiple species in mariculture,” he said.
Gopalakrishnan said that CMFRI is in the process of formulating its National Mariculture Policy Guidelines to enhance India’s sea-cage fish-farming ventures, but that more investment, especially public-private partnerships, were need to see the industry grow. He also said more formal educational programs were needed to build a knowledge base for mariculture in the country.
“We have to emulate the successful mariculture models implemented by the Southeast Asian countries, where mariculture has grown significantly [by] catering to the food and economic security of those countries, Gopalakrishnan said. “The Chinese model of developing seafood based products from plant-origin materials such as seaweeds and micro-algae can complement our requirements on growing demand for seafood.”
