Carp Fry Production: an Economic Activity for Rural Women

Back ground

In India, aquaculture, particularly freshwater aquaculture has emerged as a fast growing enterprise and a viable alternative to the declining capture fisheries. Supply of appropriate size of quality fish seed of desired species at the right time is very important for successful aquaculture. Easy availability of inputs like fish fry, supplementary feed and fertilizer can facilitate the women participation in aquaculture. Cary fry production in the backyard ponds can be a viable economic activity for the rural women

Technology description

In India, aquaculture, particularly freshwater aquaculture has emerged as a fast growing enterprise and a viable alternative to the declining capture fisheries. Supply of appropriate size of quality fish seed of desired species at the right time is very important for successful aquaculture. Easy availability of inputs like fish fry, supplementary feed and fertilizer can facilitate the women participation in aquaculture. Cary fry production in the backyard ponds can be a viable economic activity for the rural women

  • Pond preparation:
    These activities start with the onset of monsoon. Pond size of 0.02-0.03 ha is ideal from the management point of view. Pond dykes and pond water are to be cleared for weeds. Following this bleaching powder @350 kg/ha has to be applied to kill predatory and other weed fishes one week prior to stocking.. Three days before stocking, ponds should be fertilized with slurry made from the mixture of groundnut oilcake (GNOC) soaked overnight (750kg/ha) Single Super Phosphate (50kg/ha) and cowdung (200kg/ha). Half of this is to be applied just before stocking and rest in 2-3 split doses depending on plankton count in pond water. Application of soap-oil emulsion (18kg/ha of cheap soap and 56kg/ha vegetable oil) before 1-2 days of stocking is a simple method of insect control.
  • Stocking:
    Stocking of the ponds is to be done @30lakh spawns per hectare during the cool hours of the day after acclimatizion by allowing the poly-packs containing spawns to float on the pond water for 5-10 minutes. Then they should be released slowly and gently into the pond.
  • Supplementary Feeding:
    From 2nd day of stocking ,supplementary feed (mixture of finely powdered GNOC and rice bran in equal proportion)is to be given @ 600 g per lakh of spawn for 1st five days and @1200 g for next 15 days
  • Harvesting:
    Fish fry on attaining size of 25-30 mm are to be harvested and sold from 20 days onwards depending upon the demand of fry in the locality. This will also help in preventing mortality caused by overcrowding in ponds.

 

How it is women friendly

The participation of women in aquaculture is restricted mostly because of the non proximity of aquaculture sites. Majority of the rural households especially of Odisha and West Bengal have back yard ponds which could be used for fry production. This will help in the utilization of the otherwise useless ponds and also in the increased participation and income generation of women. It also enables enhanced fish production by facilitating the availability of fry in the village. Since being a short duration culture practice, carp fry production is better suited for rural women in terms of time they have to spent in the management activities.

Performance /outcome

The technology yields encouraging results in terms of increased fry production as well as additional income for the participating women. The fry production technology was demonstrated in 11 villages of Odisha. A total pond area of 0.858 ha was utilized for fry production of around 7 lakhs. The participating women could get a profit of Rs 95640/ha by participating in the activity. Economics of carp fry production in an ideal pond size of 0.02 ha shows that a profit of Rs 2968/- could be earned within a single cycle of 30 days.



Source: Fisheries section, ICAR- DRWA, Bhubaneswar