Aquaculture & Fisheries

Biography

Biography: N. R. Chatterjee

Abstract

World aquaculture production continues to grow, albeit at a slowing rate. According to the latest available statistics collected globally by FAO, world aquaculture production attained another all-time high of 90.4 million tonnes (live weight equivalent) in 2012 (US$144.4 billion), including 66.6 million tonnes of food fish (US$137.7 billion) and 23.8 million tonnes of aquatic algae (mostly seaweeds, US$6.4 billion). In this context, India is the second largest producer of fish and the second largest producer of fresh water fish in the world. Fishery plays an important role in contribution of rural economy and nutritional security. It has the highest contribution in agricultural GDP among all the allied fields of agriculture. But there is a severe concern gets highlighted when the per-capita fish availability is compared with its recommended level and production level is compared with the demand. A sharp gap can be identified, especially in case of aquaculture production which demands technological interventions to meet up this gap. The latest technological developments in fisheries sector offers better prospects for all sections of rural people particularly for those who have poor land base and abundant labour force. Despite significant advancement of fisheries sector there is still moderate to low adoption of modern fisheries production technologies.  There are considerable evidences which suggest that non-adoption of recommended technologies is often related to non-technological factors, such as social, psychological, cultural and economic factors. These barriers can only be solved by successful implementation of different fisheries development programmes. Several studies indicated that lack of adequate planning and continual evaluation is a major reason for the failure of the development of projects and extension activities (FAO,1996). Therefore, development of sustainable technologies for Aquaculture practices and effective extension communication strategies are needed. In recent years, there has been growing dissatisfaction with the poor rates of adoption of aquaculture technologies in resource-poor farming systems.  This poor adoption has resulted partly because when aquaculture technologies are developed, there is little input from farmers.  Participatory Technology Development (PTD) offers a way forward, through active, decision-making involvement of farmers in every stage of technology development. When new technology is being developed, researchers usually control all steps of the process. The Participatory Technology Development (PTD) approach involves farmer’s right from the beginning, when they are asked to identify their problems.