Mariculture, although often advocated as an avenue for supplementing the deficit from marine capture fishing, by and large, is an activity contributing to the home economy, food and nutritional security at the household level and providing self-employment for coastal communities all across the Asian region. Coastal fisher folk are often considered as "poorest of poor" which is not true, but are vulnerable to hidden hunger.
The present author introduced the concept and practice of open sea mariculture for the first time in India in 2005 through funding support from the GoI Ministry of Agriculture and the first harvest of cage grown Lates calcarifer from the open sea cage took place at Visakhapatnam in 2007. Much refinements have taken place since then after the coastal communities adopted this new technology. The subsistence cage farming activity taken up by fishermen groups, women self-help groups (SHG) and individuals have demonstrated beyond doubt that there is immense potential in cage mariculture not only for providing freshly harvested live fish to the consumers, but also an avenue for self employment, income generation, food and nutritional security at household level to a large number of coastal people. The efforts made by the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) to take the activity forward by horizontal and vertical expansion, providing the technical backstopping and supplying fingerlings of candidate species and holding hands with the farming groups are great examples of how committed organizations can make a change in the lives of poor people.
Presently there are 1688 cages installed across the coastal waters with CMFRI assistance and another 1700 are in the pipeline with NFDB funding. Currently 2795 persons are engaged in this activity which includes 30 Self Help Groups(source: CMFRI).Species grown include Cobia, Silver Pompano, Seabass, Red Snapper, Pearl Spot, Caranx ignobilis, Grouper Epinephelus coioides and Rock Lobsters Panulirus homarus and P. polyphagus.
Proper economic analysis is required to understand the profitability by factoring in subsidy, technical guidance, labour of the fisher-farmer, interest on capital and depreciation. Maximum farm gate prices were realized for Rock Lobsters (Rs.1200 per kg). Average farm gate prices of finfishes ranged from Rs.120 to RS 400 per kg.
The future is not for industrial cage culture in India, but for organized, technically supervised, environment friendly small scale farming by coastal community. Diversification of species, use of formulated feed, organized value chain management, farmer friendly mariculture policy including leasing rights and technical support from mandated organizations will be steps closer to ensuring coastal food security.