The Government of India, assisted by the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, are engaged in the Intensification of Freshwater Fish Culture and Training Project (IND/75/031) whose main purpose is to strengthen central research training and demonstration facilities, to train specialized staff, to formulate and implement research and demonstration programmes.
The Freshwater Aquaculture Research and Training Centre (FARTC) at Dhauli, Bhubaneswar, Orissa State, was established by the Indian Government to increase fish production from the country's ponds and reservoirs. The Centre receives UNDP/FAO assistance, in the form of short-term consultancies and equipment, under the project Intensification of Freshwater Fish Culture and Training (IND/75/031) and the regional project Establishment of a Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia (RAS/76/003).
As part of the project operation FAO assigned Dr Kai W. Chow as Consultant (Fish Feed Technology) from 27 November 1980 to 17 February 1981 with the following terms of reference:
to assist in the elaboration of studies on the nutritional requirements of cultivated carps and particularly to start a programme for determining their amino-acid requirements and the amino-acid profiles of locally available diet ingredients in use;
to assist in installation and operation of the feed mill and also to formulate and prepare different types of feeds from locally available ingredients for fry, fingerlings and brood stock of cultivated carps required for experimental and production work in India.
During the past decade, Government efforts have been made, through the All-India Coordinated Project for Composite Fish Culture of the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), to develop polyculture of Indian major carps in the country. These efforts are now continuing at the research level at the new FARTC facilities at Dhauli.
Catla catla (catla), Labeo rohita (rohu) and Cirrhinus mrigala (mrigal) fry are captured each year from the wild during the monsoon season, when natural spawnings occur, and stocked together with Chinese carp, viz., Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (silver carp), Ctenopharyngodon idella (grass carp), and Cyprinus carpio (common carp), in still-water undrainable earthen ponds for growing to marketable sizes. Although common carp have been artificially spawned year round, and fry of catla, rohu and mrigal have also been successfully obtained by artificial spawning of mature fish during the monsoon season, such spawnings have not been successful at other times of the year. This poses a major constraint for development of carp polyculture.
In fish, as in land animals, sexual maturity is an essential prerequisite for successful reproduction. Experience with the common carp has amply shown that, under artificial conditions, proper feeding can bring about both accelerated growth and early sexual maturity. Similar effects on the Indian major carps have not been investigated due to the lack of knowledge concerning the nutritional requirements for growth and reproduction for these species.
Although intensive forms of fish culture invariably involve artificial feeding, the levels of such feeding are dictated by the culture systems employed and the species involved. Complete feeding does not appear to have been tried, mainly because monoculture of carp in India is very seldom attempted on a commercial scale. Instead, in carp polyculture, supplemental feeding is conducted in most nursery ponds as well as in some rearing and stocking ponds.
Commonly used feeds are rice bran and oil-seed cakes. These are usually mixed in a one to one weight ratio. The mixture is sometimes compressed into a dough after addition of an equal part of water. The dough is then pinched off into small boli which are then placed on wicker trays lowered into the water for feeding to fish. More often, the oil-seed cake/rice bran mixture is simply broadcast on to the pond surface during feeding time. Feeding is conducted once a day at the rate of 2 to 5 percent body weight of fish, as determined by age class of the fish and natural productivity of the pond. Fish of all age classes under the polyculture system are given the same supplemental feed. As expected, benefits from such feeding practices have been highly predictable. Increases in yield vary according to the quality of the diet components, the rate of feeding, the way in which the feed is given, and, most importantly, where natural foods meet the bulk of dietary needs of the fish, the natural productivity of the pond. The supplementary feed, unbalanced as it were with respect to protein and energy content, and unfortified with the necessary vitamins and minerals, does not seem to be adequate.
Being largely an agricultural country, India produces enormous quantities of feed materials derived from crops. These include a wide variety of oil-seed cakes and meals, pulses, and mill by-products of seeds and grains. Also available are smaller quantities of by-products from the meat, fish and dairy processing industries. Large quantities of vegetable wastes and cannery wastes, undoubtedly, are also used in animal feeding. Almost all the feedstuffs consumed within the country are by the livestock and poultry industries, with the latter accounting for most of the concentrate feeds such as feed grains, oil-seed cakes, and fish meal. Practically all these feed raw materials are also suitable for feeding to fish.
Recognizing the importance of proper feeding in successful fish production, the project has included among its primary research aims, determination of the nutritional requirements of the Indian major carps, especially with regard to amino acids, and development of efficient, least-cost diets for both mono- and polyculture of these fishes using locally-available feed ingredients.
In summer 1980, the Aquaculture Development and Coordination Programme (ADCP) of FAO arranged, under Project IND/75/031, the services of its fish feed technologist to assist in the establishment of a nutrition laboratory at FARTC and to help initiate a fish diet development programme at the centre.
