Rural Livelihood generation through Aquaculture
Situation
- Agrarian crisis is deepening in India. The grain output is not increasing and the employment rate in agriculture sector has not grown as much as the employment rate overall.
- The last 10 years have recorded never before rates of urban migration.
- Of the 60 million new employment opportunities, 52 million have been in the unorganized sector.
It is also true that livelihoods in the rural sector are evolving and hold a lot of promise, if gaps are identified properly.
Our aim is to work towards delivering innovative solutions to provide sustainable livelihood for the rural youth through aquaculture.
This project was undertaken in a small village pond in Palghar district of Maharashtra, India.
The Project
Utilization of village pond for aquaculture for livelihood generation and food security
The Problem
In this region they have small village ponds (around 3 to 4 acres) which are seasonal in nature. It was difficult to utilize these ponds for fish culture of the most popular species as they require perennial water bodies.
We selected a team of fresh fisheries graduates to study the site and come up with a solution as a part of their internship.
The Solution
They proposed the following solution after studying the various technical parameters
Raise fingerlings of GIFT tilapia in the cages installed in the same pond
Then stock the pond with the fingerlings
One of the fresh fisheries graduates who could commute to this particular location was chosen and given the task of monitoring the entire crop cycle in partnership with the youth in the villages.
Task of the fresh graduate: To check the water parameters, decide the feed dosage, checking the samples for sign of diseases
The task of the village workers (3-4) was to take care of feeding, security helping with water analysis and harvesting.
Role of the NGO during the project
Our NGO co-ordinated the efforts and also sourced the good quality seed and low cost feed for them
The Outcome: In 6 months 3 .5 tons of Tilapia were harvested from the pond which has not yielded even 500 Kgs till date. The farmed fish were harvested and sold at the site to the villagers and local market. Thus a good quality fresh fish was available to the villagers at a reasonable cost as all the marketing intermediaries were cut off.
The youth from nearby villages visited the site and showed interest in taking up this fish culture in their village ponds.
The Challenges
- Insufficient data on physical properties of the waterbody
- Difficulty in convincing the youth of the new species and scientific ways of fish farming
- Getting the fisheries graduate who could commute to the site.
Rural India is in dire need of innovation in the livelihood sector. Our present intern has done a commendable job in this regard. You can add on further through setting up market linkages, community mobilisation for adoption of better farming practices, introduction of appropriate technologies, better management of groups and organisations and other aspects based on the situation and as the skill set supports.
Dr. Vaishali Joshi