Open Source Fisheries yields good results in coastal districts

Visakhapatnam: Under the Open Source Fisheries (OSF) programme, the nursery farmers in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari have produced 4.42 crore fingerlings in 2018-19.

The programme helped fishermen to use 543 ponds and 62 cages as nurseries to produce fingerlings, and 1,717 ponds for growing fish to marketable size. The phenomenal rise in fingerling production from two crore last year to 4.42 crore in the present fiscal helping about 18,000 families in the four coastal districts. The daily per capita food consumption is between 2010 and 2030 stands to increase by 27 per cent.

The need now is to foster a shift to more sustainable resources of food such as inland culture fisheries. As many as 184 integrated farming demonstrations, which covers fish, vegetables and poultry have been piloted and 100 low-cost, locally made cages have been installed across the four districts, said Programme Manager OSF Karthik Ramesh said.