Blue revolution in India: Status and future perspectives

Fisheries and aquaculture development in India witnessed impressive growth in recent years. The country is rich in aquatic genetic resources distributed from deep sea to the cold Himalayan rivers sharing about 10% of the global aquatic biodiversity. The capture fisheries production in the country has more or less stabilised but the growth in inland aquaculture has been tremendous during the past three decades. Freshwater aquaculture contributes to about 85-90% of the farmed fish. In 2018-19, India was the second largest producer of fish in the world with a total production of 13.4 million t comprising 3.7 million t from marine and 9.7 million t from inland sector. The technological advances enabled the country to significantly enhance production and productivity particularly in the fresh and brackishwater aquaculture sectors. Recent progress in cage culture in reservoirs and mariculture in the sea offer new avenues for aquaculture diversification and development. Major constraints in capture fisheries production are depleted stocks due to habitat degradation, overexploitation, poor governance, climate change, in addition to harvest and post-harvest losses. The key problems in culture fisheries include low average productivity due to low adoption of technology, disease prevalence, non-availability of quality seed and cost effective feed for desired species. Cutting edge translational research and technology upscaling and dissemination along with improved governance, fisher and farmer centric fisheries policy support and large scale capacity building in both aquaculture and marine fisheries sectors are the key strategies for achieving the targets of blue revolution in the country. This comprehensive review of the Indian fisheries and aquaculture provides latest information on resources, sectoral production, technology intervention and policy formulations along with recommendations as well as future perspectives.

Impact of COVID-19 on Indian Seafood Industry and Potential Measures for Recovery: A Mini-review

Global seafood sector is going through a massive shock during a global-scale disturbance named “COVID-19 Pandemic”. Restricting national and international trade and traffic was the most needed step to contain the spread of virus; meanwhile it has wreaked havoc on all import-export businesses. Seafood sector, is one of the major pillar behind agricultural export (fisheries sector contributing 1.07% to the Indian agricultural GDP) and blue revolution. But due to uncertainty of the lockdown periods, the Indian seafood sector has crashed, affecting livelihoods of all fishing and related communities, export and supply chain (both domestic and international), demand and consumption etc. The sudden crisis has exposed various shortcomings of the sector and expanded our vision to look ahead of temporary solutions and find long-term sustainability. Unavailability of real-time data from planned surveys are one of the major reasons behind this failure. This article aims to highlight the present scenario of the Indian seafood sector during the pandemic through assessing various news articles, national reports and publications. Further it suggests some recovery steps like building up alternative seafood networks, promoting domestic demand and markets, forming fishing community friendly schemes (medical and insurance), adopting new technologies to prevent and handle any future crisis.

Water Enclosure and World-Literature: New Perspectives on Hydro-Power and World-Ecology

This editorial introduces the special issue, ‘World Literature and the Blue Humanities’. The authors articulate the commonalities and tensions between world literature, world-ecology, blue humanities, and hydrocultural approaches. Taking megadams, water pollution, and the blue revolution as baselines, we offer short analyses of works by Namwali Serpell, Craig Santos Perez, Jean Arasanayagam, Paul Greengrass, Wyl Menmuir, and Emily St. John Mandel in order to articulate how culture can both contest and normalize water enclosure. The piece ends with a brief summary of the contributions to the special issue.

Bio-Floc Technology: Prospects & Challenges in Fish Farming of Nepal

Bio-floc technology is the blue revolution in aquaculture & new technique of enhancing water quality & utilizing feed wastes in the aquaculture system. It follows the concept of conversion of ammonium in addition to organic nitrogenous wastes into bacterial biomass in where heterotrophic bacterial growth is stimulated & nitrogen uptake through the production of microbial proteins is promoted by the addition of carbohydrates to the pond. Nitrogen generated by uneaten feed and excreta of cultured organisms is converted into proteinaceous feed available for those same organisms. This technique recycles nutrients & nitrogenous wastes by maintaining a high carbon: nitrogen ratio and provides essential & higher quality nutrition to the shrimps & fishes in achieving fast growth, lesser FCR & possibility to prevent diseases. Water requirement in BFT is extremely less & it is advantageous than the conventional system where there is continuous water & nutrient recycling, lower FCR. On the other hand, many challenges are existing in practicing bio-floc in Nepal as it requires frequent pond monitoring by the technical manpower. The choice of carbon source should be made wisely and correctly as the performance of fish and water quality in the bio-floc ponds depend highly upon carbon source. Further, vitamins required for fish may not be produced by microbes thus needed to identify them and supply through the feed. However, the practice of bio-floc technology will be proven worth for farmers in Nepal. Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 8(2): 140-145

Resources and Productivity of Indian Aquaculture – Status and Prospects

India tops the world in aquaculture production next to China. The present Blue Revolution envisages tripling fish production of India by 2020 which necessitates effective resource utilization. The aquaculture resources of a country cannot only be limited to land and water availability but also to its species diversity, workforce and infrastructure facilities. Though Indian aquaculture has registered increased production in past few years, the productivity in terms of water and manpower resources remain very low. There is also a need for diversification of species for mariculture activities. Hence, this paper examines the status of Indian aquaculture from a global perspective to sort out ways for enhancing productivity.

Revolusi Biru dan Human Security Nelayan di Kusamba Klungkung

Revolusi biru (blue revolution), sebagai strategi pembangunan dan upaya akumulasi kapital, bukan hanya tidak berhasil mengangkat nelayan dari kemiskinan yang melilit mereka, namun ia juga menyisakan persoalan bagi keberlangsungan human security nelayan. Tidak hanya gagal menangkap apa yang sebenarnya menjadi kebutuhan nelayan, paket kebijakan modernisasi perikanan seringkali malah merugikan nelayan dan masyarakat pesisir pantai. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui proses dan bentuk modernisasi perikanan (minapolitan) yang sedang dalam proses pembangunan serta bagaimana respon para nelayan dan masyarakat pesisir terhadapnya? Selain itu, akan memeriksa apa kira-kira yang akan diakibatkan oleh modernisasi perikanan bagi keberlangsungan human security kehidupan nelayan dan masyarakat pesisir. Penulis terlebih dahulu memulai uraian dengan mengelaborasi konsep pembangunan, human security dan revolusi biru sebelum memberikan ilustrasi kasus nelayan dan masyarakat pesisir, berkaitan dengan pembangunan minapolitan, di kawasan pelabuhan Kusamba Kelungkung.