KOCHI: The aquaculture sector in the state is all set to witness a revolutionary change as the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) is gearing up to open the country’s first multi-species hatchery and nursery at Vallarpadam in the city.Spread over 8.5 acres, the Multi-species Aquaculture Complex has a capacity to produce two crore fingerlings of six commercially-important species, including black tiger shrimp, Asian seabass, pompano, cobia, genetically-improved farm tilapia and mud crab.
“The hatchery has the capacity to produce 20 million disease-free high-health tiger shrimp seeds. The facility will help revive black tiger shrimp farming in the state after a gap of two decades and will help improve the revenue of fish farmers as the demand for good quality tiger shrimp is very high in the international market,” said MPEDA chairman A Jayathilak.
One of the major impediments in undertaking black tiger shrimp farming is the lack of healthy disease-free seeds. Black tiger shrimps, a species indigenous to the country, had dominated the aquaculture industry till 1994, when white spot syndrome viral infection reduced farm productivity. In 2009, the exotic ‘vannamei’ shrimp was introduced in India’s coastal aquaculture, which helped boost the export revenue.
However, the black tiger shrimp is in high bemand in the European and Japan market. It can fetch 20 per cent more income. India had produced 4.09 lakh tonnes of vannamei shrimp in 2015-16. The export increased to 5.7 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 and 7.00 lakh tonnes in 2017-18. The MPEDA expects the figure to touch 10 lakh tonnes in the current fiscal, said Jayathilak.