What is the important learning we can focus on for the development of the blue economy?
How do we sustain and improve on India’s global position as a leading producer of aquaculture?
- Since aquaculture was welcomed as a sunrise sector with great potential, we have not been able to develop it as a significant sector enriching the lives of people.
- It is clear that available laws must be enforced with greater vigour to control unviable and unchecked fisheries and aquaculture.
- The selection and diversification of candidate species is crucial from an environment perspective, and over-dependence on a particular species has been an obstacle to the growth of aquaculture.
- The PMMSY targets for 2025 bring hope, but need to be measured against previous targets set, and not achieved.
- Marine Spatial Planning, training, support, and capacity building of communities are important elements in the management of the blue economy.
- The selection and diversification of candidate species is crucial from an environment perspective, and over-dependence on a particular species has been an obstacle to the growth of aquaculture.
Beginning in the 90s, aquaculture began to be recognized as a sunrise sector offering huge potential for the Indian economy, and rightly so. After all, with a coastline that has been measured over 11,000 km in 2023-24, as well as ponds, wetland plains and brackish water areas, rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and lakes there are potentially millions of hectares that can be harnessed for the blue economy. However, the initial excitement around this sector has settled down to more sombre reports of the high costs of unchecked growth.
Visible Costs of Fisheries and Aquaculture
In Andhra Pradesh, the foremost state in aquaculture, damage to the environment is visibly affecting the lives of people in Krishna, East Godavari, West Godavari and Konaseema districts. Contamination of the soil and groundwater with harmful chemicals, salinity affecting crops and the availability of drinking water, allergies and health problems developing from people living in close proximity to shrimp cultivation ponds have all been reported. The problems have become so acute over the years that petitions have been filed with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) by affected villagers, and the Human Rights Forum (HRF) of Andhra Pradesh has been raising awareness among rural people about the harmful effects of unauthorised or illegal aquaculture ponds.
One of the contributing factors to this situation is undoubtedly the over dependence on shrimp, which fetches a higher price than fish. This became the most sought-after species for aquaculture in the initial years. It requires brackish water with ten times more salt content than ordinary water, and farmers began sinking borewells up to 50 feet in coastal districts to access more salty water. They also discharged effluent from the aquaculture ponds into drains that irrigated nearby fields. This, plus the ammonia that was released into the air when aquaculture ponds were dredged and cleaned, began affecting the crops in a drastic way. Diseases such as vibriosis, White Spot disease, early mortality (EMS) or epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) wiped out shrimp harvests and needed to be addressed with strong chemicals that further aggravated the harmful nature of the environmental impact.
If the early years of aquaculture had seen a more scientific and regulated approach, with farmers being helped to select stock of diverse species, and understand the importance of Integrated Multi Species Agriculture (IMTA) such harmful effects could have been avoided.
This affects the availability of fish in the marine environment, impacting the livelihoods of fishing communities. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has highlighted the importance of conserving and managing fish stocks for long term sustainability. Over fishing of some species, and fishing during periods when fish have not yet reached adult sizes harms marine biodiversity. Our policies for fisheries must reflect a strong intent to prevent such a decline in stock and diversity.
Regulation Within the Legal Framework
All these developments reveal the need for a much more focused and informed regulatory approach to the management of the Blue Economy that will produce the desired results for the land, people, vegetation, wildlife and crops. The laws to regulate aquaculture and fisheries have evolved over the past few decades, but still present loopholes.
Aquaculture activities were regulated under the Environment Protection Act (EPA) of 1986 till 2005. This Act classified aquaculture as a prohibited activity within the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ). Thus, any aquaculture operations in the coastal area required specific permission and were subject to strict environmental regulations enforced by the authorities established under the EPA. Large areas of agricultural land being converted to shrimp farming had led to environmental concerns raised by several Supreme Court rulings. Under the EPA, with the CRZ notification, coastal aquaculture was a restricted and monitored activity.
When the Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 came into effect, it replaced the EPA, and stipulated that aquaculture must be taken up in designated zones, and wetlands, agriculture fields, salt pan areas, mangroves, forests must be protected. If the provisions of this Act were strictly enforced, it would serve to protect both, the environment, and the aquaculture sector. Instead, corruption and its attendant compromises at each level from panchayat to State government level have caused many provisions to be ineffective. The cash offered for short cuts by farmers, and the willingness of officials to bend rules in return for cash, are among the factors that have soured the promise of a sunrise sector.
Further, the Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Bill 2023, specifically meant to improve the ease of doing business in this sector, decriminalized many activities that would have drawn prosecution under the earlier Acts. It made it clear that “coastal aquaculture and activities connected therewith are permitted activities within CRZ under CRZ notifications.” While the importance of the aquaculture sector for the economy cannot be questioned, it is to be hoped that decriminalizing activities within the CRZ does not lead to unchecked growth that can harm the fragile ecological balance of the coast.
Importance of Marine Spatial Planning
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has to be used adequately in the protection of mangroves and planning of aquaculture ponds.
There is no evidence to show that enough thought has been given to planning aquaculture ponds, or converting abandoned ponds to green mangroves in our country. If MSP was being used for the purpose of careful planning of expansion of fisheries and aquaculture, and protection of mangroves, this would have been highlighted in some sense in the year-end department review of Fisheries and Aquaculture or the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) portal.
Perhaps the best way to understand how important MSP is to the Blue Economy is to see it as a means to assess any site for aquaculture in holistic terms – from the quality of the soil, vegetation and surrounding habitat to the anticipated yield it could generate and the role it could play with the rise of ocean levels and climate change. From the available literature, it appears that MSP has to still receive its due attention.
Training, Support and Capacity Building
An essential element of any successful aquaculture enterprise is the training and support of farmers in understanding not only the technical and scientific processes required in achieving a good harvest, but also in the selection of species to be cultured and the specific requirements of each such species. As Shlok Nemani, Research Fellow at the Maritime Research Center explains, “Aquaculture needs adequate training, especially the mariculture of seaweed. This is because there are a lot of prerequisites in maintenance of the pond, its preparation, maintaining optimal water quality of the pond over time, providing adequate aeration, etc in order to increase productivity and revenue.”
Nemani, who has studied the practices of farmers in Gujarat and Maharashtra, wishes that more importance was given to the training of farmers. “Although, through PMMSY, farmers do receive encouragement for looking at opportunities in aquaculture, these are purely in terms of funding provided by the Centre in concurrence with states,” he says.
What needs to be better understood and encouraged is the mapping aspect of aquaculture and how it must be done. In this regard, all the available reports and literature seem to suggest that there is not much careful examination in terms of planning to see which farmers have the most viable option to transition into aquaculture. As Nemani explains, “In the reports of expansion of aquaculture, it mostly seems as if the development is ad hoc, mainly based on the income of the farmers, or some gender-based schemes for women empowerment, and extra support for marginalized communities. But this needs some further examination, too.”
In terms of capacity building and the creation of supportive infrastructure for aquaculture, Andhra Pradesh is a good example for training and local communities. This is of course, also visible in view of the sheer production and revenue achieved by the State. However, what is also clear is that training and support provided by local self-governance requires adequate governmental support too. Some of the training provided to farmers at workshops conducted with farmers in Krishna district, for instance, is to equip them to be self-reliant and resilient against disasters, as well as adapting to and mitigating the risks from climate change. These measures have to be supported by policies at the State and national level.
Selection and Diversification of Candidate Species
One of the most important ways to lead to more robust aquaculture practices is to ensure the diversification of candidate species. As mentioned earlier, the over-dependence on shrimp caused harm to the growth of aquaculture and it needs to be replaced by careful selection of diverse species.
In fact, Integrated Multi Species Aquaculture (IMTA) is a sustainable method that has not received sufficient attention in our pursuit of the gains from the Blue Economy. Through IMTA, waste from one species is the food for another, and this symbiosis contributes to the health of the water and soil. When multiple aquatic species from different trophic levels are farmed in an integrated fashion, it reduces waste, and provides ecosystem services. Bio-remediation occurs when waste products from fin fish or higher trophic species are used as nutrients by species at the lower trophic level, such as plants or invertebrates. The farmer can then harvest the lower trophic species in addition to the higher trophic fish.
PMMSY Targets and Ground Realities
While research at institutions like the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CMFRI) has also underlined the importance of IMTA, its adaptation across the aquaculture sector in different states remains a concern.
The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) has sought to expand the scope of aquaculture seen in the year-end report of the Department of Fisheries 2024, and its emphasis on seaweed, pearl and ornamental fisheries. Apart from a series of measures taken to empower fishermen with an e-market platform, providing 1 lakh fishing vessels equipped with transponders, and strengthening coastal communities on how to face climate change, the most important takeaway at the end of 2024 is the ambitious target of 1.12 million tonnes of seaweed production set by PMMSY for 2025.
However, achievement of all the targets laid out needs careful attention to conditions on the ground across the States. Without the training, support and capacity building of farmers, fishing and coastal communities mentioned above, such targets can remain mere numbers.
Better research, more planning, and stronger enforcement of environmental laws can open the doors to a more bountiful Blue Economy. But all of this needs our collective resolve, as farmers and consumers, researchers, policymakers, and citizens.
References
Scharada Dubey
About Author
Scharada Dubey is an author of narrative non-fiction and children’s books. ‘Portraits from Ayodhya: Living India’s Contradictions’ (2010) and ‘M for Minority: Muslims in #NewIndia’ (2020) are among the books she has written on contemporary India. She also works on writing partner projects, and connects with listeners through her show ‘Yes, Aunty! The Scharada Dubey Podcast’. Scharada lives and works in Bangalore.