Summary For fish eaters, it has become challenging to get hold of seer, Indian mackerel, lobster and crabs without breaking the bank. In places like Goa, India’s favourite party destination, the price of marine fish has almost doubled in the past three months. Here’s the inside story of this inflation.
New Delhi: These days, Mahendra Vinayak Desai, a resident of Chimbel, on the outskirts of Goa’s capital Panaji, has to wake up earlier than usual to purchase seafood, a staple in much of coastal India. At 5 am, the retired lecturer gets a call from a fishmonger, his long-time supplier, giving him details of the day’s catch and the prices. The fishmonger, however, isn’t from his neighbourhood—he’s a good distance away. “I’d rather travel 9km to get fresh fish than purchase the frozen ones from the lady in my locality,” says the 68-year-old harmonium accompanist and motivational speaker.
More than 2,000km away, Juthika Biswas, a 60-year-old resident of Kolkata, is also finding it harder to buy fresh seafood. Although Bengalis are partial to freshwater fish, marine fish, such as pomfret and mackerel, have become an important part of their diet. But while they have become popular, these fish are also becoming scarce. “We love to eat Pomfret. As we cannot completely stop having it, we have reduced the quantity of Pomfret as well as prawns,” says Biswas.
In much of West Bengal and parts of the east and west coast, placing such limits on fish would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. But a series of heatwaves—unprecedented in their severity, length and frequency—have been coursing through the country, killing the vulnerable, setting off forest fires, and taking maximum temperatures up to nearly 50 degrees Celsius.
Life underwater, too, perished before fishermen had a chance to extinguish it. Inland water bodies have been hit hard by the rising temperatures. An alarming 2-5% of fish in lakes and ponds may have been wiped out, according to Trivesh Mahekar, a fisheries scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-CCAR), Goa.
“Warmer water temperatures can decrease dissolved oxygen levels and increase the incidence of harmful algal blooms, both of which can affect fish health and survival rates in natural as well as farmed environments,” says Mahekar. Since October 2023, marine heatwaves—unusually high ocean temperatures—have led to extensive bleaching of corals in the Lakshadweep Sea.
In general, for farmed, freshwater or brackish water fish to thrive, the ideal water level should be 1-1.5 metres, says Mahekar. But this year water levels in the ponds that he is studying have shrunk below 1 metre. “I have observed that the water level shrank 67-75 centimetres due to intolerable temperatures, resulting in mortality. This year, fish mortality in my ponds could be around 2-5%. If the temperature keeps rising like this every year, the mortality burden is bound to go up.”
It isn’t just ponds and lakes. Since October 2023, marine heatwaves—unusually high ocean temperatures—have led to extensive bleaching of corals in the Lakshadweep Sea, depriving them of essential nutrients and compromising their survival. This, in turn, is threatening marine ecosystems, livelihoods and biodiversity, according to a statement issued by the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, a leading tropical marine fisheries research body, in May.
Experts say prolonged heat waves lower oxygen levels in water bodies and also cause diseases. These two effects together not only increase mortality among fish but also impact reproduction.
However, a top official of the fisheries ministry, speaking to Mint on condition of anonymity, said that there has been no decline in output so far. “As of now, we haven’t received any reports of fish production getting hurt, especially due to heatwaves,” the official asserted. Queries seeking an official response from the fisheries department remained unanswered at the time of going to press. To be sure, government data show production has been rising steadily since the 1980s. More recently, it went up from 12.7 million tonnes (mt) in 2017-18 to 17.5mt in 2022-23.
While production data for 2023-24 is expected this year and 2024-25 will only be available next year, experts believe the scarcity of certain varieties of fish has led to a spike in their prices in the domestic market. Ordering 1kg of seer (king mackerel/kingfish/surmai) on a seafood e-tailer, for instance, can set you back by nearly ₹3,500.
India’s fish exports, meanwhile, have also declined in value terms. In 2023-24, they dropped to $7.5 billion from around $8 billion in 2022-23, according to the Seafood Exporters Association of India.