The technology of prawn culture in India is still traditional and extensive called trapping-cum-holding in brackish water ponds, but adoption of

Improved extensive prawn culture technology Is claimed to be picking up fast In several places notably In West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and

Orissa. The production from such culture practices is estimated at 15000-17000 tons/year, accounting for about 5% of the total prawn production

In India the technology of scientific prawn culture is now available. Though steps are being taken to motivate, and encourage the fish farmers to

take up prawn culture on scientific lines to increase their Income, lack of an appropriate extension network Is felt to be a major handicap In the

field. This paper attempts to review the various extension services available for taking up prawn culture by the fish farmers. Identifies the pitfalls

and proposes a working fisheries extension programme for prawn culture In Indi

Jayaraman, R

Joshuva, K

Ramesh Babu, K R

Rao, V Subba

Sai, J Purushotham

CMFRI Digital Repository

CMFRI bulletin 44 Part Three FEBRUARY 1991 •^ ^^ h*^  NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN MARINE FISHERIES M A N D A P A M C A M P 16-18 September 1987 Papers Presented Sessions V. VI & VII v<«* ^•xsXxeries ^^ _^  CENTRAL MARINE FISHERIES RESEARCH INST ITUTE ( Indian Counci l o f Agr icu l tu ra l Research) P. B. No . 2 7 0 4 , E. R. G. Road, Coch in -682 0 3 1 , India <? * 40 YEARS t I CMFRI bulletin 44 Part Three FEBRUARY 1991 YEADS v» NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN MARINE FISHERIES MANDAPAM CAMP 16-18 September 1987 Papers Presented Sessions V, VI & VII V^*""'**^^ ^^•'^S^^ '<3S|«i^^ CENTRAL MARINE FISHERIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE {Indian CpunQll of Agricultural Raaaaroh) F. B. No. 2704, E. R. Q. Road, Cochln-682 0 3 1 , India Bulletins are issued periodically by Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute to interpret current Icnowledge in the various fields of research on marine fisheries and allied subjects in India. Copyright Reserved ® Published by Dr. P. S. B. R. JAMES Director Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute E. R. G. Road Cochin-682 031, India Editorial Commlttaa Dr K ALAGARSWAMI Dr K ALAGARAJA Shri M S MUTHU Dr K J MATHEW Dr N GOPINATHA MENON Limited Circulstlon Paper 68 EXTENSION SERVICE FOR PRAWN FARMING R. Jayaraman, J. Prushotham Sai, K.R. Ramesh Babu, V. Subba Rao and K. Joshva Marine Products Export Development Authority, Regional Centre (Prawn Farming), Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh. ABSTRACT The technology of prawn culture in India Is still traditional and extensive called trapplng-cum-hoiding in bracklshwater ponds, but adoption of Imporved extensive prawn culture technology Is claimed to be picking up fast In several places notably In West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orlssa. The production from such culture practices is estimated at 15000-17000 tons/year, accounting for about 5% of the total prawn production In India The technology of scientific prawn culture is now available. Though steps are being taken to motivate, and encourage the fish farmers to take up prawn culture on scientific lines to increase their Income, lack of an appropriate extension network Is felt to be a mEijor handk^p In the field. This paper attempts to review the various extension sen/Ices available for taking up prawn culture by the fish farmers. Identifies the pitfalls and proposes a working fisheries extension programme for prawn culture In India INTRODUCTION The word extension conveys the sense of stretching out to the villagers and workers in their respective field beyond the four-walls of conventional school and college systems. It is a method by which people are motivated through appropriate approaches. However, extension is a discipline by itself involving both art and scierfce. Science, because it involves technolgy to impart better and more knowledge than what is existing on the subject in a most efficient and effective way and, art, because of its attractive way of presentation and passing on the information to Others. Therefore fisheries extension could well mean disseminating information on fisheries in a effective and efficient way. HISTORY OF FISHERIES EXTENSION IN INDIA As early as 1928, the Royal Commission of Agriculture recommended modernisation of fishing to be brought about through research, extension and co-ordination of various depart-ments related to Agriculture. The development of fisheries was included under integrated pro-duction programme in the year 1950 in order to augment fish production. In 1952, the Krish-namachari Committee recommended setting up of countrywide extension services in the field of agriculture. The first fishery extension organisa-tion was set up in 1950 in the CIFRI as a nucleus of an extension service unit. Later, in the Sec-ond Five Year Plan more units were added under the Ministry of Agriculture and in the Vth plan budget an allotment of Rs.1512.40 million was made. In the V|th plan, an amount of Rs.3711.40 million (1980-85) and in the Vllth plan (1985-90) a sum of Rs.4991.90 million were allotted, which are little compared to developed countries like the USA which spent an estimated amount of $ 1200 million on extension activities. Simi^taneously from llird Five Year Plan on-wards th€ State Governments made conscious efforts toyvardi fisheries extension by allocating fundsfoTthe purpose of their annual plans. Unlike dairy or poultry development, natural resources for fisheries development are varied and land limitation is not a constraint. The scope for de-velopment is virtually limitless. The National Seminar on Fisheries Exten-sion held at Cochin from December 8-10, 1980 has observed in most unequivocal terms that the existing extension service is, "totally inade-quate and ill-equipped to utilise opportunities for enhancing fish production and improving rural economy". Since then fisheries extension was accorded importance and priority at various lev-, els and now every organisation involved in fish-eries education, research or development has an extension wing. However, this system still remains unorganised with no co-ordination at all. 495 They are insufficiently manned and it is not un-common to see this area being given last pri-ority and least importance. There are instances wherein extension service was thrust upon some officers as an act of punishment. Budget allo-cations in several state fisheries departments for extension services were insignificant because of the attitude that investment in extension is un-productive because it does not directly result in production. Therefore, it may not be incorrect to conclude that the present statijs of fisheries ex-tension in the country is totally inadequate. EXTENSION FOR PRAWN FARMING Predominance of frozen prawns in the Indian marine products exports, since their introduction to the international market, made several organ-isations concerned with prawn farming to under-take extension activities. Since frozen prawn con-tinued to be the main item of export, accounting for a share of 57.32% (49203 tonnes) in terms of quantity and 82.03% (Rs. 377.93 crores) in terms of value against the total Indian marine prod-ucts export of 85843 tonnes fetching Rs.460.67 crores during 1986-87, prawn farming received a fillip'from the MPEDA which got itself involved in prawn farming in a big way. It has in fact, for the first time, taken organised and co-ordinated ef-forts to establish an extension service for prawn farming. It has established a Regional Centre for prawn farming in every maritime state for devel-opment of prawn farming. The activities of each Regional Centre can be broadly classified as fol-lows: 1. Survey of brakishwater areas and finding their suitability to prawn farming. 2. Preparation of plans and estimates for con-struction of prawn farms. 3. Issuance of feasibilty reports for developing new prawn farms. 4. Extension of technical assistance to prawn farmers. 5. Supply of inputs like prawn seeds, fish poison, filter screen etc., at cost price. 6. Conducting prawn seed resource surveys and identifying such collection centres. 7. Demonstration of commercial viability of prawn farming in farmer's ponds. 8. Demonstration of advanced farming tech-niques. 9. Conducting training courses to farmers and entrepreneurs in prawn farming. 496 The extension and development pro-grammes of the Regional Centres have helped the farmers to bring in more brackishwater ar-eas under prawn culture as well as to conduct the farming operations successfully. For exam-ple, during the past five years, the Regional Centre(RC), Machilipatanam has surveyed (Mi-cro Level) over 6700 ha for their suitability to prawn farming. After a detailed survey (micro-level) of 908.0 ha the R.C has prepared project feasibility reports for 785.56 ha of prawn ponds. It has located new prawn seed collection centres in Krishna and West Godavari Districts. Techni-cal assistance for conducting prawn farming on scientific lines has been extended to over 228 registered farmers having 583.10 ha of prawn ponds. The R.C has so far conducted eleven training courses and trained 232 farmers In prawn culture. Further, it has supplied inputs like prawn feed, fish poison, filter meshes and Ice boxes to prawn farmers. The result being that the area under prawn farming in Andhra Pradesh is likely to exceed 2000 ha and the production of pond-raised prawns has increased from a mere 1.5 tonnes in 1981-82 to 354 tonnes in 1986-87. During the 7th Five Year Plan, the MPEDA has introduced new promotional schemes for the development of prawn farming: 1) Financial assistance (subsidy) to develop new prawn farms. 2) Financial assistance for setting up of prawn hatcheries and seed banks. 3) Supply of subsidised prawn feeds. Another important agency involved in exten-sion activities for prawn farming is the B.F.D.A. The B.F.D.A's are prominent in Orissa. However, regarding their role in prawn farming, it is claimed that, they have not achieved the targets set under departmental schemes like brackishwater devel-opment, fishery publicity, training of farmers and even in the case of Fishermen Group Accident Insurance Scheme they have done pretty badly under the beneficiary-oriented programmes exe-cuted through the agency of D.R.D.A. particularly in the anti-poverty sector. The constraints to the development of ex-tension service for prawn farming are: 1) Lack of trained personnel to man the extension units. 2) Lack of understanding and co-ordination or horizontal linkage among various agencies involved in executing comprehensive devel-opment programme leading to improper Im-plementation, wastage of funds and poor re-sults. 3) Lack of adequate funds to implement extension programmes. . 4) The development programmes do not reflect the felt needs of the target group and our technological findings are not based on feed-and-feed back system. 5) It is claimed that there were leakages and malpractices in the administration of subsidy and loan due to ignorance of the beneficiaries. 6) The major handicaps were the poor scale of financing which was too low to generate ade-quate income, reluctance of banks to extend loan facilities to weaker sections, and inade-quate institutional support for supply of raw material, inputs and infrastructure. 7) The number of beneficiaries are fixed on uni-form basis per block without considering the population size or extent of poverty in the block or availability of local resources or felt needs of the target groups hence social jus-tice is not ensured. STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING EXTENSION SERVICE FOR PRAWN FARMING A six point strategy is suggested for strength-ening extension service for prawn farming. 1) Horizontal linkage among all governmental and non-governmental agencies involved in the fisheries sector should be ensured. This Would facilitate identification of issues of pri-ority basis, elimination of duplication of ef-forts, effective and efficient utilization of the scarce funds, availability of sufficient number of extension personnel and realisation of set targets ultimately. 2) Non availability of trained technical person-nel is another problem that merits our atten-tion. Fisheries training at every level should include extension courses also. Graduates despatched from various Fisheries Colleges could be picked up to man the extension ser-vices as they have right blend of fisheries science and fisheries extension sciences. In many Indian fisheries research institutes, agri-cultural extension officers are handling this job. Such positions should be filled in with Fisheries Graduates (specialised in Fisheries Extension). The various fisheries training pro-grammes given to department staff should also include fisheries extension courses ad-equately. 3) The budget allocations to extension wing at various levels have been meagre and paltry. This is because of the attitute that investment in extension is unproductive because it does not directly result in production. This attitude should change and adequate budget alloca-tions should be made. 4) Provision of necessary working facilities like field kits, vehicles, audio-visual equipments etc to the extension staff is necessary. 5) Regular meetings between the various gov-ernmental and non-governmental agencies involved in fisheries extension should be con-ducted to ensure exchange of information. This should be of immense help to all of them and facilitate a sustained growth for every one of them. The communication gap could as well be narrowed down if not bridged. 6)The various governmental and non-govern-mental agencies, involved in this field may try to obtain assistance and aids available from several international/regional aiding agencies or development organisations. 497 

Extension service for prawn farming

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Extension service for prawn farming

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