Fisheries
Note
India's marine and inland fisheries sector is governed through the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, and the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF). It links to the Blue Economy, aquaculture regulation, and export earnings through marine products via MPEDA. The sector contributes to farmer income, food and nutritional security, and rural livelihoods, while facing challenges of over-fishing, climate vulnerability, and post-harvest losses.
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Questions on this topic
Consider the following statements regarding the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) and the governance of transboundary hilsa stocks in the Bay of Bengal:
- Hilsa is an anadromous species, meaning it lives primarily in freshwater and migrates to marine waters for breeding.
- Uncoordinated national fishing-ban calendars can shift net fishing pressure across maritime boundaries rather than reduce it, as fish migrate into a neighbouring country's Exclusive Economic Zone during the other country's closed season.
- The EAFM framework, as applied to transboundary stocks, calls for joint stock assessments and synchronised seasonal closures across range states, rather than single-species rules written country by country.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Explanation
Statement 1 is incorrect: hilsa is anadromous in the opposite sense — it lives primarily in marine (saltwater) environments and migrates upstream into freshwater rivers to breed. Anadromous fish spend their adult life at sea and enter freshwater to spawn; the statement inverts this relationship. Statement 2 is correct: this is the core governance problem of transboundary fisheries. When one country imposes a closed season, migrating shoals cross into a neighbouring Exclusive Economic Zone where domestic vessels may legally continue fishing, so the overall catch pressure is displaced rather than reduced — a textbook regulatory loophole in shared-stock management. Statement 3 is correct: the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) moves beyond single-species national rules to protect the entire shared habitat and stock. Its operational pillars for transboundary species include aligned seasonal closures among all range states, joint stock assessments using shared monitoring and tagging data, and collaborative management advisories — precisely the framework recommended by fisheries scientists for the hilsa fishery across India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
Consider the following statements regarding fishmeal dependence, feed cost structure, and alternative protein ingredients in India's aquaculture sector:
- Fishmeal, derived from wild-caught fish, remains a critical conventional protein ingredient in aquaculture feed, and its limited availability and rising prices are a major driver of increasing production costs in India's aquaculture sector.
- Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae-based feed technology is relevant to aquaculture primarily because BSF larvae can fix atmospheric nitrogen and thereby enrich organic waste with protein, making it nutritionally equivalent to fishmeal.
- Developing alternative protein ingredients for fish feed from locally available resources such as insects, microalgae, seaweeds, and agro-processing residues is considered a strategy to reduce India's aquaculture sector's dependence on wild fish stocks.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Explanation
Statement 1 is correct. Fishmeal — produced by processing wild-caught marine fish — has long been the dominant high-protein ingredient in aquaculture feed globally and in India. Its supply is constrained by finite wild fish stocks, and its price volatility directly raises aquaculture production costs, a well-documented challenge in fisheries economics. Statement 2 is incorrect. BSF larvae do not fix atmospheric nitrogen. Their value in feed production comes from their biological ability to bioconvert biodegradable organic waste — market waste, food scraps, agricultural residues — into protein-rich and lipid-rich biomass through consumption and digestion. This is a heterotrophic bioconversion process, not nitrogen fixation (which is a trait of certain bacteria and legume-associated microorganisms). The statement conflates two entirely different biological mechanisms. Statement 3 is correct. A core principle of sustainable aquaculture economics is diversifying the protein ingredient base away from fishmeal toward locally sourced alternatives — insects (including BSF), microalgae, seaweeds, aquatic plants, and agro-processing by-products. This reduces pressure on wild fish stocks harvested for reduction (fishmeal production), lowers feed cost volatility, and aligns with circular bio-economy principles. ICAR-CMFRI's research mandate explicitly encompasses this feed-ingredient diversification strategy.
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