Every day, Agostinho Costa picks up a bucket-full of shrimp-based fishmeal and slings it across a pond. A school of chonak that have grown to a meaty size over the past six months, race to the surface of the pond to feast on it. Costa smiles at the feeding frenzy with pride. Amid the furore of industries in South Goa’s Shiroda, this man makes a living by fishing in the village of Panchawadi. It was a few years ago that he ventured into culture fisheries in an open pond that connects to the Zuari river. He set up a solar fencing system in the water to protect the fish from other sea creatures and covered the top with a barrier net to protect them from predatory birds.
“The mentality in Goa is that fish should grow naturally. Cultured fish is seen as chemically grown. However, much like organic farming of agricultural produce, even organic culture fisheries exist in Goa,” he told TOI. We use fishery products devoid of chemicals to rear the chonak. Water salinity is always checked to maintain their health,” he said.
While Costa usually harvests fish within eight months from the date of cultivation, this year he has started a year-and-a-half-long trial period in hopes of harvesting at least one tonne of produce. After introducing 1,000 fish seeds in the pond this January, he has been closely watching them grow. The harvest will be in April-May next year.
For a state with a coastal length of 104km and a continental shelf of 10,000 fathoms, only seven of Goa’s talukas house 39 fishing villages. A large expanse of Goa’s marine waters and citizen population, therefore, is yet to warm up to the fact that fishing could be a lucrative business. “Meteorological conditions have impacted capture fisheries along the southwest coast,” a senior scientist from the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) told TOI. “Cage culture can prove to be a sustainable solution especially in the face of ocean pollution. High-value fish, shrimp and shellfish have a good market locally, and bio-entrepreneurship workshops to encourage Goans to take up cage culture can go a long way in promoting this technology.”
On the other hand, the overall production of shellfish has been affected due to microplastic pollution. A study by Goa University’s zoology department revealed that most decapod crustaceans such as prawns, shrimp, crabs, lobsters and crayfish have shown accumulation of microplastics in their gills, hepatopancreas and gastrointestinal tracts. “That is exactly where cage culture of shrimp and bivalves comes in,” said Dattaram Sawant. He began with cage culture at St Estevam and after reaping success, decided to take it a notch higher and venture into mussel culture. His wife, Bindiya, applied for the PMMSY scheme for bivalve cultivation and together, the couple now grows green mussels. “Right from community festivals or even private events, we can have a tailor-made product that is suitable for consumers in terms of species, size and freshness. Adding green mussels to our venture only gives us wider access to the market,” he said.
Despite the availability of central government schemes to adopt cage culture, the method is not intensively practised in Goa due to lack of awareness about the science behind it, motivation to execute it, and the expertise to handle it. Poor response to such schemes has resulted in a dip in production of cage cultured fish in Goa. From harvesting nearly three tonnes of fish in the 2020-21 financial year, fish farmers across Goa reared and harvested only 1.8 tonnes in 2022-23. “Cage culture gives impetus to employment avenues while also reducing overfishing. We need to give practical training to the youth in Goa because there is much scope to rear fish and mussels for local consumption and export,” said deputy director of the fisheries department, Chandrakant Velip.
In India, cage culture fisheries were popularised by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and with the help of its various centres across the country. Over the years, cage culture demonstration units were set up and fish farmers were trained to grow anything from the humble sea bass to the prized lobster. “If the seed is of good quality, the attack of pathogens is lesser and they are naturally protected from viral, fungal and bacterial diseases. The quality of the water and environment also need to be kept in check,” said Trivesh Mayekar, a fish genetics and breeding scientist at ICAR-CCARI Goa. The Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture under the Marine Products Export Development Authority offers support to different aquaculture projects in the country by providing quality fish seeds to farmers. In Goa, fish farmers source seeds from a private hatchery in Kumta that has a tie-up with the Central Institute of Brackish Water Aquaculture under ICAR. With there being no feed manufacturing plant in Goa, fish farmers in the state source from major feed plants in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. For disease and fish growth management, Goa is dependent on CMFRI experts from Karwar, and on Kerala for the supply of probiotics and fish medicine.
The cost of sourcing the seed, feed and medication is therefore high for fish farmers. This can be remedied by them attending training and capacity building programmes offered by the NIO, ICAR-CCARI and the fisheries department which help fish farmers understand seed quality, manage diseases and build sustainable businesses. “The need of the hour is to adopt new technologies to increase fish production in Goa. We must decrease our dependence on capture fisheries because aquaculture is the future of the fishing industry. The Indian EEZ is huge and every state has its own area in inshore water as well as deep water. We can initiate industrial cage culture on a large scale with the help of the government,” Mayekar said.